Eight Murders In the Suburbs Read Online Free PDF Page A

signs—”
    â€œRight! We accept that you got out of that chair—though you don’t remember it. You may have done other things, too, but I’ll show you that you didn’t kill Rinditch. To begin with, let’s have a look at the murder knife.”
    Miss Paisley went to the cupboard.
    â€œIt isn’t here!” she exclaimed. “Oh, but of course—! I must have—I mean, didn’t you find the knife?”
    Graun was disappointed. He could have settled the matter at once if she had produced the knife—which had indeed been found in the body of the deceased. A knife that could be bought at any ironmonger’s in the country, unidentifiable in itself.
    â€œIf you had entered Rinditch’s room, etcetera, you’d have left fingerprints all over the place—”
    â€œBut I was wearing leather riding gloves—”
    â€œLet’s have a look at ’em, Miss Paisley.”
    Miss Paisley went back to the cupboard. They should be on the top shelf. They were not.
    â€œI can’t think where I must have put them!” she faltered.
    â€œIt doesn’t matter!” sighed Graun. “Let me tell you this, Miss Paisley. The man—or, if you like, woman—who killed Rinditch—couldn’t have got away without some pretty large stains on his clothes.”
    â€œIt wouldn’t have soaked through the lumber-jacket,” murmured Miss Paisley.
    â€œWhat lumber-jacket?”
    â€œOh!—I forgot to mention it—or rather, I didn’t get a chance. When I sat down in that chair at ten-thirty I was wearing a green suede lumber-jacket. When I came to myself in the small hours, I was not wearing it.”
    â€œThen somewhere in this flatlet, we ought to find a ladies’ lumber-jacket, heavily blood-stained. I’ll look under everything and you look inside everything.”
    When the search had proved fruitless, Miss Paisley turned at bay.
    â€œYou don’t believe me!”
    â€œI believe you believe it all, Miss Paisley. You felt you had to kill the man who had killed your cat. You knew you couldn’t face up to a job like murder, especially with a knife. So you had a brainstorm, or whatever they call it, in which you kidded yourself you had committed the murder.”
    â€œThen my meat-knife, my old riding gloves and my lumer-jacket have been hidden in order to deceive you?” shrilled Miss Paisley.
    â€œNot to deceive me, Miss Paisley. To deceive yourself! If you want my opinion, you hid the knife and the gloves and the jacket because they were not bloodstained. Brainstorm, same as I said. Maybe you’ll remember sometime where you put ’em.”
    Miss Paisley felt giddy. Graun steadied her into the armchair.
    â€œYou don’t need to feel too badly about not killing him,” he said, smiling to himself. “I’ll tell you something—you’ll be reading it all in a day or two. At seven o’ clock this morning, a constable found Jenkins trying to sink a bag in the river. That bag was Rinditch’s, which was kept under the bed o’ nights. And Jenkins had two hundred and thirty odd quid in cash which he can’t account for.”
    Miss Paisley made no answer. She had kept her calm but had achieved nothing. The rather conscious nobility of purpose which had driven her to confess her crime was shrinking into an effort to save face.
    â€œMaybe, you still sort of feel you killed Rinditch?” Miss Paisley nodded assent. “Then remember this. If the brain can play one sort of trick on you, it can play another—same as it’s doing now.”
    Inspector Graun had been very understanding and very kind, Miss Paisley told herself. It was her duty to abide by his decision—especially as there was no means of doing otherwise—and loyally accept his interpretation of her own acts. The wretched Jenkins—an abominable man, who had made her a laughing stock for