The Attic Murder: An Inspector Combridge & Mr. Jellipot Classic Crime Novel

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But her manner was quiet and frank. Perhaps it was natural enough! He knew that those who adopt a mood of suspicion are too apt to find what they seek to see. Not last Thursday - the one before. So, counting today, it's more than ten days ago. He was up here just as usual then, and I feel sure he would have mentioned it if he had been meaning to go away. But he might not have known he was going when he was here. He might have decided later, or had some sudden call, such as a relative's illness.

I can't say that there's anything conclusive in that. But you can see what risks there are for anyone living alone. I think something ought to be done to make sure.

by Sydney Fowler

I see how you feel. But, from our point of view, it's very difficult to do anything. We can't break into people's flats just because they take a week's holiday. We've no legal right, and we should become unpopular if we tried it on. He reminded himself that women are apt to be emotional with what may seem inadequate cause to the masculine mind, and was cynical enough to wonder whether a mere morbid curiosity, as an alternative explanation; might not be disguising itself in a better dress.

But she seemed simple, sincere, and genuinely forgetful of herself in consideration of her neighbour's possible need. You must have known Mr. I told you that. We were, as far as I know, the only friends that he had. It reduced another possibility which had come to a mind familiar with so many aspects of human weakness. Was it not possible that Mrs.

Lovejoy might have been on even closer terms of intimacy with the occupant of the flat below than her husband suspected? Did she know of some reason for attributing a sinister explanation to his absence, such as she could not disclose without admitting more than she could afford to do? In her husband's absence, which might be for long regular hours during the day, how solitary, how free from observation, these two people would have been - the young recently married girl on the top floor of the house, and the retired steward who was "not old", alone in the flat below!

Who could say that they had only met in the evening hours? He knew the danger of speculating in advance of the facts he had. But what actresses some women are! His mind in more doubts than one, he answered merely: He wanted time to decide what he should do next. It is a case of a row of old houses of outward respectability being converted into a series of separate flats, one on each floor, by the provision of bathrooms and a minimum of kitchen accommodation.

There are no lifts. There is a single porter whose. The door before which the inspector paused had not even the security of a modern lock. It was one which would be very easy to pick. An elderly or crippled man, living alone in such a place, and perhaps watched when drawing money and taking it home, almost asked for trouble. But he saw something else. There was a pint milk bottle on a window-ledge by the door. He prised up the cardboard stopper, and saw that the milk was fresh.

If milk were being taken in daily, he had been brought there by one of the emptiest tales that had ever wasted the time of the Yard. Mrs; Lovejoy heard him without surprise. The milkman spoke to me about it. He said he'd had no orders to stop supplies, so he had been putting a fresh bottle there at every round, and taking the old one away.

Rissole had gone away, he had not only failed to notify his neighbours on the floor above which he had been under no obligation to do , he had also omitted to inform one at least of the tradesmen with whom he dealt. He went down again to the closed door. He pressed for a long second upon the bell. He knew that one very competent member of the force would ague seriously that a bell has a different sound in a deserted house, and that it is possible to tell thereby, after ringing once, when persistence will be rewarded and when it will be a saving of time to withdraw.

That may be true or not, but now, aided by imagination or fact, he felt that the bell sounded a note of desertion. He would have been almost startled had he heard an approaching step, or seen the door open to confront him with a living man. He pushed open a letter-flap which had no box on its inner side, and saw a thin scatter of letters or circulars on the floor.

He looked with some attention at the lock, which he was now disposed to pick. He observed that it had no key on the inner side. He saw that to be a singular fact if it had been locked and locked it certainly was on the inside, but natural if someone had gone away after securing it from without, in which event he would have taken the key with him. It was equally natural whether Mr. Rissole himself had taken it, as his right was, or it had been used in the same way by a fleeing criminal, who would not be likely to simplify discovery by leaving an open door behind him.

In fact, the absence of the key showed no more than that the flat was most probably empty. Yet that was something. It decreased the likelihood that, if he should force the door, he would come upon a man quietly eating his lunch, or perhaps sleeping off the effects of some weekend indulgence, who would ask unpleasant questions as to his justification for trespassing there. It was the kind of dilemma which his department had to face continually, and in which no excuse, however good, was of much avail, either for mistaken action or for inaction at the wrong time.

What his superiors expected was that he should make the right guess, and it is by the instinctive capacity for such decisions that officers in the detective service avoid censure, and rise to such conspicuous positions as that which Chief Inspector Combridge already held.

He considered that there should be a porter in charge of such buildings, one who would probably have a master key, and who might enter the flat with a better right than himself, though perhaps not much.

He might have asked Mrs. In two minutes he might do so still. But he was indisposed to make further enquiries from her. There were two flats below. He would hear what their occupants had to say. That proved to be simpler to resolve than to do. The first-floor flat was untenanted. That on the ground floor appeared to be occupied, but efforts with bell and knocker produced no reply. Used to meeting such obstacles, and to overcoming them by patient pertinacity, he went on to the next house.

Here the first door at which he rang supplied him with the address of the porter, who lived on the other side of the road. He learned also that the man would be unlikely to be at home at that hour. But his wife might. Neasom, a gaunt woman with a baby on her arm, said that her husband would be out till one o'clock. He lived at number three. She could not say that she had seen him for some days, but she evidently saw nothing singular in that circumstance, She described him as a quiet, pleasant gentleman.

Well, you might say. Not much to notice. Not when you got used to it. She hoped there was nothing wrong? Inspector Combridge saw that her idea of anything being wrong was of some trouble coming from the police, rather than of illness or misadventure which they should relieve. To avert that familiar form of misunderstanding, he gave a brief explanation of the enquiry which he was making.

Rissole to be quite capable of looking after himself. She said darkly that she should have thought the Lovejoys had got enough to do minding their own affairs. As to a key for the flat, she had none to offer, even had she shown more disposition to help. Nor would her husband be able to do more if he were in. Their duties were with the main doors and lights; and to keep stairs and passages clean. Inspector Combridge saw that she took a common-sense view of the matter, with which he was still half inclined to agree. But he did not fail to observe that the isolation of those two upstairs flats was more absolute, both by day and night, than he had previously supposed.

He turned the conversation to the Lovejoys. He learned that Edwin Love joy was an ironmonger. He had a business in the Hornsey Road. The woman evidently knew something more about these tenants which she was reluctant to say. He did not press for what might have been no more than irrelevant gossip. The whole enquiry seemed too likely to end in nothing. If he should want more information, he was content to know that it could be had here. But he had decided to resolve the matter by entering the almost certainly empty flat.

The keyless lock would be easy to open in such a manner that there would be no remaining evidence of his lawless action. In all probability, if no irregularity had occurred to justify his invasion, it would be an interference which might remain unguessed. He could advise the Lovejoys to maintain silence, which they should be very willing to promise.

At the worst, there was the husband's letter to give occasion for what he did. He sought an ironmonger, avoiding the Hornsey Road, procured the keys that such a lock would require, and entered the flat without difficulty. As he entered the little ill-kept sitting-room, he knew that he would not be called to account for that illegally opened door. The foul odour which met him had already prepared his eyes for the sight upon which they fell. That which had been Adrian Rissole ten days before lay face downwards upon the floor.

There was no sign of a struggle. No disorder in a room which was over-furnished in a shabby way, and in the style of an earlier period. A room the walls and mantelpiece of which were covered with dusty portraits and knicknacks, as was the top of the ancient roll-top desk, and where any violence of movement would have produced a chaos not easily to have been straightened again. He had been stabbed in the back. It was a wound which could not have been self-inflicted. It had been deep and wide, and had bled as such wounds will not always do. The inspector judged that Adrian Rissole had fallen as he was struck.

He might well have been dead for a week, but that was for the medical gentlemen to decide. He concluded this without touching the body. It was not a case where anything need be hastily done. Not one where the murderer was to be captured by swift pursuit. He withdrew from the flat, locking the door again, and after a moment's hesitation as to whether he should acquaint Mrs.

Lovejoy with his discovery, and request the use of her telephone, went downstairs instead of up, and entered a street call-box. It might be discourteous treatment of those who had led him to the discovery of the crime, but there are circumstances under which courtesy cannot be a paramount consideration to the officers of the C. Having acquainted Superintendent Davis with the discovery which he had made, and summoned the expert assistance which such an investigation requires, he went back to Barclay Buildings.

He still did not feel it necessary or desirable to ascend to the fourth floor. The time when it would be necessary to interview Mr. Edwin Lovejoy could not be far ahead, but he wished to learn first what he could from inspection of the dead man's flat. The result of this detailed inspection, and of information which came to him during the afternoon, confirmed the discretion of the attitude which he had adopted.

When he knocked again at the Lovejoys' door at 6. St was with the knowledge that Edwin Lovejoy had ascended the stairs a few minutes before, and after he had ascertained such facts as, while they fell far short of implicating the tenants of the upper floor in the crime, yet led to a grave doubt concerning the innocence of the man he was about to interview, and of the motives prompting the letter which had originated the investigation.

Lovejoy, he wondered, written reluctantly under the pressure of his wife's urgent importunity? Or had he, perhaps, coldly calculated that it was an action likely to divert suspicion from himself? Was it not possible that Edwin Lovejoy was the one man in the world - perhaps the only one - who knew of the corpse which lay rotting in the sordid disorderly room that would be directly below his feet as he indulged in the comfort of his evening meal?

Was it too wild a guess that he had spent the last days in nervous calculation as to when and how the murder would be discovered, as it surely must be at last, and now, with his plans fully formed, his answers to every possible question prepared, had decided that a little friendly concern as to the welfare of their next-floor neighbour would be natural for him and his wife to show?

Well, Inspector Combridge concluded, he would be able to judge better when he had seen the man. He might know more - much more - when certain finger-prints had been developed, and when he had ascertained how Mr. Lovejoy had spent the latter part of the Saturday and the Sunday a week before.

The facts with which he had become armed for his interview with Mr. Lovejoy were briefly these: Adrian Rissole had been stabbed in the back with a broad-bladed weapon, such as a carving-knife. The position of the wound indicated that the attack had been furtive and unexpected, and this was supported by the absence of any sign of a struggle in the untidy room. The exact nature of the weapon used must be a matter of conjecture, though it could scarcely be one which most men would have in their possession when paying a friendly call.

But it might be one such as an ironmonger could easily select from his own stock, without the risk of a purchase which might be brought in evidence against him. The opportunity for striking such a blow at Adrian Rissole's back would be more likely to be offered to an acquaintance than a stranger. Men do not commonly admit those whom they do not know into their living-rooms, and then turn their backs upon them. It is possible to postulate a variety of circumstances under which this might happen, yet it remains a fact that normally it would not.

But Edwin Lovejoy was an acquaintance, or, on his own wife's testimony, something more. On her word also, Mr. Rissole's other friends were few, or perhaps, none. Lovejoy had brought cutlery for his neighbour to consider purchasing? How easy the crime would have been! The lonely flat, without even a resident caretaker to consider - the sudden blow, too unexpected for any outcry before, too savagely deep for more than a choking groan after it had been driven in.

Yes, there had been no absence of opportunity. Yes, if the Lovejoys knew or suspected the nature of the dead man's will, even apart from any money which they might have known - might be the only outsiders who knew - the flat to contain. For everything that he had, including a capital sum which brought in about three-pounds-ten a week, was left to Adrian Rissole's "kind friend Jane Lovejoy, who had done so much to cheer the days of a lonely man". That was the wording of the will which had lain in the old-fashioned roll-top desk, which had no better lock than a common penknife could force open, leaving no more evidence than a scratch when it should be closed again - and several scratches were there.

There was here a clear motive of greed; or - perhaps rather less probably - jealousy might have urged the blow. Suppose that Edwin Lovejoy, whether or not he might be aware of the will, had observed a degree of intimacy between the dead man and his wife which he had not liked, and had thus been led to plot a crime so carefully, so leisurely, planned that he could feel confident that detection could never follow? Suppose that there had been an occasion when he had returned unexpectedly from his shop during the day, and found to his surprise that his flat was empty? That he had heard voices from the one below?

That he had waited for a long time, during which his wife had not returned to her own apartment? Suppose that he had then gone away, unobserved as he had come, and then set a watch, and discovered that there was a regular daytime intimacy between his wife and that downstair neighbour? Suppose he had then decided that it would be better to take a course which would remove his rival for ever, rather than create a scandal by which he might lose his wife, merely transferring her to a man who had sufficient means for her support - more indeed than his own precarious financial position could assure?

There were other ways in which his suspicions might have been aroused without the knowledge of those who wronged him. A hint from a fellow-tradesman who had overseen something while delivering goods. A word between the guilty pair, not meant for him, which he overheard. There was a possible motive; but of that greed was even more strongly indicated, for a midday talk with the porter and his wife had led to disclosure of the fact that the Lovejoys were in acute financial difficulties. They were known to be pressed by tradesmen.

Their Christmas rent had only been paid last week, after a distress had been levied, jeopardizing the hire-purchase furniture, which had been barely saved. Whoever had struck that cowardly unsuspected blow had put a near end to their troubles, just as it must have been seeming impossible to them that they could escape the worst experience of impecuniosity. It did little to reduce the significance of these sinister circumstances that, while the roll-top desk had been left apparently unexplored, a small oak box which must have been kept under the bed in the adjoining room, and which had been more strongly secured, had been pulled out, its double locks forced, and its contents, consisting of miscellaneous letters and other documents, of private rather than valuable character, scattered upon the floor.

This suggested robbery as the motive of the crime, and the scattering of the papers as incidental to the search for money which might or might not have, but probably had, been there. It might have been done deliberately to mislead; but if the hand had been Edwin Lovejoy's which struck the blow, the desire for some immediate profit from his crime would have been strong enough, without any secondary motive of what he did. The time of the murder had also been fixed within comparatively narrow limits. Rissole must have forwarded to a football pool on or before the previous Friday night's post, was not of the kind which a living man would have been likely to disregard.

That evidence, incidentally confirming Mrs. Lovejoy's witness as to the principal interest or occupation of the dead man, appeared to place the murder almost certainly between Friday night and Tuesday morning, which was confirmed by the medical testimony, Dr. Haliburton, the police-surgeon who had appeared very promptly upon the scene, having expressed a preliminary opinion that the unfortunate man had been dead for "at least a week, and probably longer than that".

Examination of the contents of the desk had revealed evidence which appeared to fix the time within still narrower limits. The dead man had kept a diary which had every appearance of having been regularly, though not very lengthily, written up. It was one of those books which have ruled spaces of a dozen or twenty lines for each day of the year, and for the Saturday which was almost certainly the last complete day that the man had known, there appeared this entry: Afternoon to see Chelsea - Brentford match.

No indication that Mr. Rissole had looked over his copies of football coupons after the results of the afternoon matches had been published, and ascertained that he was a winner of something which, by the erratic course of such betting, might be anything between-four-and-sixpence and four thousand pounds.

Presumably he had entered up the diary for the day when he had returned from watching the Chelsea match, and had then let in some visitor - a man almost certainly known, if not expected - by whom he had been foully stabbed in the back; unless, of course, which was a diminishing probability, the crime had not been committed until some hour of the following day.

With these facts, among others, arranging themselves in Chief Inspector Combridge's clear and experienced, if not brilliant mind, he rang the bell once again on the upmost floor. Lovejoy's light steps approach the door, and had a well-founded impression that his legs were being examined cautiously through the letter-box flap. His newly-acquired information upon the state of the Lovejoy finances led him to another conclusion equally sound, that this display of caution might not be directed against himself; and reflecting that the evidence of his legs alone might be inconclusive, he stepped a couple of paces back, and was rewarded by the sight of a promptly opened door.

It was not because he was in any doubt on the subject that he asked whether Mr. Lovejoy were in, for he knew that that gentleman had been followed from shop to flat less than half an hour before; but as Mrs. Lovejoy responded with a ready affirmative, and asked him in, the feeling that he was regarded as a welcome visitor came again, as it had done at his morning call. Well, that might be the lady's reaction, but would Mr.

Lovejoy feel the same? Lovejoy's feelings, whatever they might be, appeared to have left his appetite in working order. A pleasant scent of grilled mutton chops met the inspector as he entered the room, and his observant glance noted that the bones of two, already eaten, decorated Mr. Lovejoy's plate, while a third was in course of disappearing and a fourth awaited its fate upon the dish before him. The man who sat consuming this meal was sparely made, as heavy meat-eaters often are. His head was small, his features rather sharp, his hair and eyes dark, his eyebrows bushy.

He was sometimes described as resembling his country's excellent Premier, at which he was pleased. At others, he suffered less complimentary comparisons. Now his black eyes glittered upon the inspector with a sharp glance of apparent self-assurance and affability, as he excused himself for continuing his meal. He had had, he said, a hard day. After that, he came to the subject of the inspector's call with a blunt directness.

Had the man given himself away? No, he could not fairly say that he had. The investigations which had been proceeding during the afternoon on the floor below had been conducted with extreme discretion, the body had not yet been removed, and there had been no public announcement of the murder. But the coming and going of the police-surgeon, the photographers, and other members of the force such as are attracted, like waiting vultures, to a scene of crime, could hardly have been unobserved by one so interested in the event as Mrs. Lovejoy had shown herself to be. He could not tell how audible, in this ancient house, movements on the floor below might be to one who was watching and lonely there.

Short as the time had been between Mr. Lovejoy's return and his own appearance, his wife might well have given him an account of the morning calls, and of what she had heard subsequently, which would justify that remark. Anyway, there should be no ambiguity in his reply.

He prided himself on the fact that he played fair. Actually, he lacked both the subtlety of mind and the type of character which would have fitted or inclined him to deceive the criminals whom he so tenaciously followed. His method was rather that of the patient bloodhound, careful, slow, but relentless in following every twist of his victim's flight on a track which he would not leave.

S. Fowler Wright (1874–1965)

If Edwin Lovejoy were an innocent man, he told him no more than he had some title to be informed, and, if he were not, no more than he already knew, when he answered: There's no doubt about that. Stabbed in the back. I came to see what information you could give us Mrs. Lovejoy told me that you knew him better than most. Lovejoy had gone into the kitchen when this was said. Her husband paused with a loaded fork half lifted towards his mouth.

He got up and went to the kitchen door, where the inspector heard him say: And then, more faintly, with more of emotion but even less of surprise, there came his wife's reply: But it's no more than I've said we should hear. At least, I was almost sure he was dead.

Lovejoy added, half to her husband, half to the inspector: It was that that I was so afraid about, and what made me get you to write. To him, a man who died naturally was of no professional interest, whether his last hours were short or solitary, or prolonged to the latest possible second by the sedulous efforts of a surrounding group of doctors and nurses. It seemed that the man fenced with him, as innocence need not do. Yet the request was not entirely unreasonable, and he had no means of making these people speak, except upon their own terms.

Showing no sign of his thoughts, he answered with apparent readiness: We don't know much more than that yet, though I expect we soon shall. I'm sure it will be the better way. Lovejoy did not appear to resent this open advice, which really gave him no option but to speak with the frankness if that were the right word which his wife proposed. But he was not quick to begin, and when he spoke, it was only to ask a question: Why mention the evidence - the diary in particular - which so emphatically indicated the following day, until he had heard what Mr.

Lovejoy would have him believe? I suppose you'd guarantee me against that? Rissole for the last year, or a bit more. Been quite friendly together, and all that. And he's never seemed to have any people he knew. Just a quiet solitary man. In fact, he once told us that he'd got no near relatives, and no one to leave his money to when he died. He's said more than once that when that happened Mrs. Lovejoy would get a pleasant surprise. I'd like to think that she will, but I know people often talk like that without putting anything into writing, even when they mean what they say, so it's probably a case of blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for that's precisely what she's going to get.

It leaves everything to your wife. But this isn't what I was going to say. We've got off the track somehow. It was the Friday evening before last, and the time must have been about a quarter past seven. That's almost exact, because we close at seven on Fridays, and I came straight home, as I mostly do. I met a man on the stairs - they're not very well lighted, as you can see for yourself - below Mr. Rissole's landing, whose face I didn't see clearly, but I didn't like his looks, or the way he pushed past me, as though he didn't want to be recognized. I had a queer feeling at the time that when he saw me coming up he was half of a mind to turn back, and half to fling me to the bottom, but he just pushed past me, with his head turned away.

I thought he'd been here, and the first thing I did when I got in was to ask what his business had been; but when I heard he hadn't called here, I saw he must have been at Mr. Of course, I didn't expect anything as bad as this. In fact, if I'm frank, it was Mrs. Lovejoy who was worrying me to write.

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I thought it would all turn out to be nothing, more likely than not; and we should get no better thanks than busybodies usually do. Chief Inspector Combridge considered this story. It seemed to him rather thin. In fact, just the kind that a murderer might make up to turn suspicion from his own door. He had been standing until now as one who had intended to do no more than inform these people of the fact of the tragedy of the floor below; but now he took the seat which Mrs.

Lovejoy had offered when he first entered the room. He thought that there might be profit in further words than he had first intended to speak. I wouldn't say that exactly. I couldn't swear to his face. But I think I should know his shoulders and neck, and - well, the general shape of the man.

You see, I looked at him rather closely, as far as the light and the way he pushed past me allowed. Lovejoy were lying, he was one who would do it with circumstance, and that he had his tale well prepared. That's what he told us. We don't know more than that. The idea of the man who retires to enjoy money made nefariously abroad, and who is then visited by mysterious foreigners with murderous purpose - well, it may be useful to writers of the class of fiction to which it rightly belongs, but his experience had not confirmed the idea that foreigners were either more mysterious or more habitually criminal than his metropolitan neighbours, nor that those who.

It was the sort of suggestion which might appear plausible to a homebred suburban mind, and which it would be likely to put forward in the effort to turn suspicion aside. As a serious theory, Inspector Combridge had no use for it at all. But he only said: Lovejoy told me how often he did that - you sometimes went down to him?

As much as once a week more often than not. It's a question of finger-prints. Of course, we're making a thorough examination of the flat for any there are, and if, for instance, we should trace the seaman you saw, and find his prints where they shouldn't be, it might just be sufficient to bring the charge home to a guilty man.

But as you and Mrs. Lovejoy were often there, your finger-marks may be all over the place without being any help to us. Lovejoy and you would mind letting us have copies of yours, so that we needn't waste time over what means nothing at all. Lovejoy very closely as he asked this. What he had said was true so far that the mere presence of the finger-prints of the ironmonger and his wife in the flat of the murdered man might have no sinister significance, but the places where they would be found might give them a deadly meaning.

Even so, he could have obtained them in other ways, but half his purpose had been to see how Mr. Lovejoy would respond to the proposal, the unspoken implications of which would not be lost to a guilty mind. As to that, he did not look pleased, and his reply was not quick to come.

But in the end he said, genially enough: Indeed, she seemed rather childishly pleased at the idea. When a detective-sergeant arrived, with significant celerity, from the floor below, bearing the simple apparatus which the occasion required, Mrs. Lovejoy's only anxiety appeared to be that she might retain a copy of the print of her own thumb. The operation reminded her, she said, of a garden-party competition, the aim of which is to produce butterflies by folding paper over three dabs of paint. In spite of many previous experiences of female duplicity, the official mind concluded that her own conscience was clear, not merely of complicity in Adrian Rissole's death, but of any suspicion that her husband was not equally innocent.

For the moment, he felt that he had obtained all the information that he was-likely to get, and his retreat was hastened by a word from the detective-sergeant spoken aside. He said that there were County Court bailiffs upon the stairs. He had asked them to wait for a short time, so that the police might not be interrupted in a legal mission even more important than theirs. But they were becoming impatient, and could not be much longer delayed.

The tale of the sea-faring man might have been useful to bamboozle a jury, had there been nothing to disprove that the murder had been committed on Friday night. But with the dead man's diary providing decisive evidence that he had been alive on the next day, it might easily be so handled that it would have a contrary effect.

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It could be argued that this rendered the alleged incident even less credible than before; and if Edwin Lovejoy had invented something he had not seen, it was an evidence of guilty conscience which any jury would be likely to read aright. The case might not yet be sufficiently clear to justify an arrest, but it was much to feel sure that they had their eyes on the guilty man, and encouraging to observe that he had already done so much to put the rope round his own neck.

Having done so much, he might be expected to do more. But Inspector Combridge could not accept the position with the entire complacency of his superior officer. It was not his part to sit back contentedly to watch the development of a satisfactory case. To complete that satisfaction rested with him, and he saw that there might still be difficulties upon the way.

We must hope that Lovejoy will try something which will put him a bit deeper in the mud than he is now. And you may learn a lot from the people on the ground floor. You've hardly begun yet. Considering that it was barely twenty-four hours since he had undertaken the investigation, he had little cause for dissatisfaction with the progress that he had made. The trouble was that he had been in a despondent mood. He had just failed rather badly It was an error which a cheque drawn upon his past reputation had been sufficient to pay. But he could not afford to fail twice in succession, lest that account should be overdrawn.

He was bound, for the moment, to be over-cautious in all he did. Still, so far, he had done well enough, and it seemed that fortune had been his friend. They were agreed upon that. They could have no foresight of the dilemma which lay ahead. A dilemma which, if it should not prove them wrong in their present guess, would be potent to turn their eyes to another trail, which then itself would foil them, and turn them back to that on which they already were. It'll only be the usual grind, mugging up the proofs now. Lovejoy's here, asking to see you on urgent business. Edwin Lovejoy, entering a moment later, certainly looked a harassed man, but he knew what he had come to say, and he lost no time.

That wouldn't be anything to do with me, except that you told me that there's a will in Mrs. Lovejoy's favour, and, if that's in order, it might be very important - very important indeed - if you could let my solicitor have a sight of it sometime this afternoon, and let him satisfy himself that there is really money to come. Jellipot, and it makes him the sole executor. Lovejoy received this information blankly, not being familiar with the solicitor's name, but the eyebrows of Superintendent Davis were slightly raised as he answered: Then the man who stuck that knife in him is going to be sorry for himself, if he makes it his business to hunt him down.

It's the information I want to have as promptly as possible, as to what my wife s benefit is. A will isn't a document of any certain value till probate's granted, and sometimes not even then. There might be another a week later, leaving everything to a cats' home. But we'll send it round this morning to Mr. Jellipot's office - he's a solicitor in Basinghall Street - and your solicitor can get in touch with him.

I dare say he'll give you any information he can; that is if your solicitor can give a good enough reason for wanting to know. Lovejoy was blunt in his reply: It was to learn more of the man, rather than from any interest in the event itself, that he added: Lovejoy's eyes glittered with anger, either at the imputation these words conveyed, or the memories which they stirred.

His cheek-bones flushed darkly as he answered; giving an explanation which caused his hearers to forget that it was a probable murderer with whom they talked. More shortly than in the bitterness of his own words it may be stated that his troubles arose through a firm of multiple providers having opened a branch almost opposite the business which he had brought to a position of moderate profit by the hard work of eight previous years.

He had been married no more than a few weeks when the disaster had confronted him, and from that day had fought a desperate losing battle, striving by novel methods of advertising, by the introduction of new lines of stock, by devices of window-dressing, by cutting prices, and other expedients which had only exhausted his resources more rapidly than a more passive attitude would have done, to maintain a struggle which yet moved inexorably to its certain end. Jellipot, if I were you. Not at first, anyway. Go and see him yourself sometime this afternoon, and explain the jam that you're in.

He might be more willing to say the right word after he'd understood what the trouble is. Lovejoy thanked him for good advice, which he said he would take. The superintendent excused himself to his own conscience with the reflection that his advice really might be good, if the iron-monger were an innocent man; if he were not it was as good as he deserved to get. But he knew that his real object had been to give an exceptionally astute solicitor an opportunity of studying a man who might have murdered one of his own clients. That is, if we're making a good guess at who handled the knife.

But you'd better get to Mr. Jellipot as soon as you can. Let him have the will, and put him wise to what the position is. It'll be a pleasure to have him on our side, though I'm not saying that the case can't be handled without his help. He heard the tragic tale with few interruptions, and these were no more than brief questions intended to elucidate some point on which the narrative had been less than full.

When it was done he said: An inoffensive man, who might, I suppose, have enjoyed life for many years in his own quiet way. He had been a client of mine for longer than I have known you, Inspector. In fact, from when I had a very small practice. He was one of those clients whom it is pleasant to have - always grateful and appreciative of what you do. Jellipot for their clients' good and as indifferent to their own gain they might earn a more general gratitude from the public on whom they live. But he did not say it, for Mr.

Jellipot was speaking again in his slow, hesitant manner, almost as though he were merely thinking aloud. That's how it looks to us. But I should hesitate to say that it is therefore an improbable explanation. The commission of such a murder may be taken as almost conclusive evidence of a singularly unbalanced mind. Normal prudence is not to be anticipated from such a source. So, at least, it appears to me. Yes, it has a very probable sound. But as to the existence of the seafaring man, I have to suggest that you may be wrong. Adrian Rissole had a second cousin, who was a seaman.

A man named Anthony Rissole, whom, you may like to know, I could identify without difficulty He was in this office less than six months ago. I am not sure. You will understand that I am expressing no opinion upon the guilt or innocence of a man I have never met, and whom you have described to me as a victim of circumstance rather than his own folly, in the acute commercial difficulty which he is now experiencing. And might not have that put the idea of inventing such a visitor into the mind of a guilty man?

And it brings us to the conclusion we'd already reached, only up a new road. We think the seafaring man can be ruled out. But we want to examine every possibility, all the same. I suppose you can't tell me whether the murdered man was involved in anything which might bring him in touch with the criminal world? Anything which might have made enemies for. I should answer with. Actually, I have seldom met a man less likely to be involved in any serious trespass against the law.

I should describe him as having had a particularly simple, truthful, but singularly irresolute character. Still, it is obviously possible. He might have felt flattered. He would certainly not have been rude. Beyond that, I cannot say what his reaction would have been likely to be. No, it is a question to which I am unable to give you a valuable reply. I suppose you don't happen to have his address?

But, if so, it's not one where you can make a quick call, and, of course, it may have changed. If he killed Adrian Rissole, it almost certainly has. It's in New York. Twenty-seventh Street East, if I remember rightly. I'll have it looked up for you now. Tony certainly considered he had a grievance, because an old woman, a distant relative of both, left a considerable sum of money entirely to Adrian. Unfortunately for him, he followed his mother in appearance, and the old lady said that a wop, which is, I have understood, an expression somewhat discourteous in its implications which is applied to citizens of the United States who show physical characteristics indicative of Italian blood, should not have a cent of hers.

But it is not an entirely improbable assumption. He was rather truculent on the last occasion when he was here, with the result that I told him - I told him firmly" - Mr. Jellipot repeated the word in his mildest tone - "that he would have no further advances with my consent, either large or small. Jellipot became, the more unshakable would his decision be. He had a total income from other sources of nearly four pounds weekly. It was an amount which tended to increase, as he lived within his income.

I may add that his money was invested with more regard to security than to the income which it would earn. If matters should prove to be otherwise in order, there is no doubt that Mrs. Lovejoy will benefit to a substantial amount. It seems to me that it's a rather big if. But it would be going too far to say that there are not circumstances in which his wife may.

That is, if she cannot be shown to be an accessory either before or after the event. But it is a question which, we may hope, will not arise. I would prefer to meet Mr. Lovejoy this afternoon with an absolutely open mind. I think you should," Mr. You will understand that it is a New York address, and not recent.

It may be useless; but you are welcome to it, for anything it is worth. But I don't say it was him. I just want to be sure he wasn't about, and then we'll give Mr. Lovejoy a chance of telling a jury it wasn't him. Jellipot, either because he was too much distressed by the. Inspector Combridge left with the determination, in a spirit of routine thoroughness, to eliminate Tony Rissole before proceeding to the extremity of applying for a warrant for Edwin Lovejoy's arrest; but he did not overlook the possibility which Mr. Jellipot had put into his mind. If Adrian Rissole had talked of his cousin, perhaps indicating his character unfavourably, and implying that there was little friendship between them, which in view of the admitted intimacy which had existed between himself and his upstair neighbours was at least probable, it would have been sufficient to originate the idea of the "seafaring man", even had it not been likely, apart from that, to come to the mind of a murderer aware of Adrian's antecedents, and having had a full week's leisure in which to prepare his tale.

If that were so, the C. It was understood that he was not to be disturbed at such times, unless the occasion should be extreme. While he consumed the cold meat and cheese which was the simple fare he preferred at that time of day, he took the opportunity to review the various matters he had on hand with the patient thoroughness of a methodical mind. Now the murder of which he had just heard occupied his thoughts to the exclusion of the provisions of a most complicated will on which they should have been more profitably engaged. Balker's abstruse intentions would receive sufficient consideration, if necessary during the night hours; but Adrian Rissole was a man whom he had known for many years, though only as an occasional client.

He had been drawn into cases of criminal homicide against his will more than once before, and had defended those who had not all been guiltless with a success which certainly had not vexed his mind. But now he had been introduced to murder from a different angle: He saw the long years of placid contented life, the uncounted days, the innumerable minutes of sentient existence, of which Adrian Rissole had been irretrievably robbed by that one pitiless thrust.

Indignation stirred him to articulate speech. On the information he had, it seemed that it was between them that the law must choose. His knowledge of Tony Rissole inclined him to think him the guilty man, but he rebuked this presumption with the thought that he was one whom he did not like. And he saw that, if Tony were innocent, there was probability that he would have been sufficiently far from the scene of the crime to prove it beyond dispute. But the case against Edwin Lovejoy was widely different. He saw that, at its weakest, it was not without the maximum indications both of motive and opportunity.

These may not be proof, even in conjunction, however strong, but they are pointers which will most often cause the light of enquiry to be directed upon the guilty man. And the inferences which might be drawn therefrom would become far stronger if it should appear probable that the vision of the seafaring man was no better than a concocted tale. It might even be held to go far in justifying the police should they arrest and thereby require him to prove his innocence, which, as the law regarding the giving of evidence by accused persons is now interpreted, is the actual result of putting a man on trial upon a capital charge.

But the immediate question was how he should receive Mr. Lovejoy, or his solicitor, during the afternoon. He saw that the time for reflection would not be long, for the intended application was not of a nature to be delayed. The interval of his customary seclusion had not ended when he picked up the telephone and summoned his managing clerk from the outer office. Rissole was murdered a week ago. He wasn't the sort of man you'd expect to get into any trouble. It seems queer we hadn't heard earlier. It has only just been discovered.

You would feel confident that he had not made any later testamentary dispositions? Not without letting us know We could feel sure of that. Then we shall answer any enquiry frankly, but exactly, that we are satisfied that the will is in order, and has not been superseded. He saw that there was more that he might be told, but it was not his habit to ask for more than his employer gave. It will be better that it should not be put in that way Nor, of course, to the contrary. It is a matter on which we have no need to express any opinion.

That will be all? I believe you sometimes saw Rissole outside business hours? I just saw him. He used to drop in at the 'Black Eagle'. He liked watching the darts there on Saturday nights. No doubt others could. I don't go myself except when there's a match there. We were playing away. Jellipot was slightly surprised. Newman had occasion to observe the erratic limits of human fame. There are probably not more than two men in the south of England who can throw a dart with such accuracy as he, and one of these requires three strong whiskies before his hand becomes steady enough to display his skill.

I play a little. But, on the Saturday before, was he there then? No, I believe not. It might be a most important point. He used always to sit in one corner. I could say that he wasn't there for most of the time between seven and nine. Perhaps a word or two more. Jellipot approved the careful limitation of this reply. Newman might have seen a dozen men in the bar-parlour of the 'Black Eagle' without knowing the names they bore.

He and his wife occupy the flat above that in which Rissole lived. Lovejoy who benefits by the will? Combridge suspects the husband of the murder. But more probably not. It is unlikely that she struck the blow. Edwin Lovejoy is coming to see me any moment now. Or I may hear from his solicitors. But he is more likely to come. As Newman made no comment on this information, Mr. Lovejoy has his own solicitors. He wants to arrange with them for an immediate advance on Mrs. Lovejoy's expectations under the will. He isn't losing much time.

Many people of excellent character are short at times of adequate financial resources in a sufficiently liquid form. That is if he'd been anywhere around. Lovejoy says that he saw someone whom he describes as a seafaring man leaving Rissole's flat about the time of the murder. It is a point on which Inspector Combridge is sure to make very thorough enquiries. He's not one to miss much. Lovejoy's here now, sir.

Summary Bibliography: S. Fowler Wright

Have him shown in at once. Next moment, Edwin Lovejoy entered the room. Lovejoy came to his point with the same directness which he had shown to his previous auditors. Jellipot to be a patient listener to a tale which he had heard little more than an hour before. But, beyond that, he was not helpful. His voice was toneless: It was an attitude too colourless to be felt as hostile, but Mr.

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Lovejoy became aware that he was not sympathetically received. Jellipot asked at last, "that you would be calling upon me? Jellipot rang for a stenographer. He asked, as the young lady entered: Jellipot accepted the information in his previous expressionless manner. In any case, it was no business of his. Edwin Lovejoy to inform you of the existence of a will dated" Mr. Newman will supply you with that , "and duly executed by the above deceased, under which Mrs. Alice Lovejoy, described as of 4 Barclay Buildings, S. As the days grow ever darker and the prospects of his people's survival diminish, Bwene must deal with a murderous Queen, treachery within his own ranks -- and a beautiful refugee from the Ho-Tus!

Another classic fantasy by a master of the genre. Account Options Sign in. A Novel of the Far Future S. Fowler Wright July 30, In the far future, a woman must fight for her life and honor against two foes: The third novel in the Marguerite Cranleigh Series. Flowing text, Original pages. Web, Tablet, Phone, eReader. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.

Please follow the detailed Help center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders. The Island of Captain Sparrow: A Lost Race Fantasy. Stranded on an unknown island in the Pacific, Charlton Foyle must fight goat-like hominids, giant, semi-intelligent birds, degenerate pirate settlers, and the remnants of an ancient race of men with powers to foretell the future, in order to save the life and love of a beautiful French girl. A stunning tour de force filled with transcendent awe and wonder, Hyperion is a masterwork of science fiction that resonates with excitement and invention, the first volume in a remarkable epic by the multiple-award-winning author of The Hollow Man.

On the world called Hyperion, beyond the reach of galactic law, waits a creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it.

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