River of Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page A

loot the place, wouldn't you say? Especially since they had all night to do it.' Angus Sinclair's consonants had the precision of cut glass. A native of Aberdeen, he'd been a policeman for more than thirty years. 'Your thoughts, John?' Madden lit a cigarette before replying. Sinclair studied his face. He noted familiar signs of strain and deep-seated fatigue in the dark, shadowed eyes. They were aspects of Madden he had come to recognize, souvenirs of the war, as permanent and unalterable as the scar on his forehead. 'Starting with the door, sir,' Madden's deep voice rose little above a murmur, 'why break it down? It wasn't locked. Then the victims' hands and arms. Apart from Mrs Fletcher, they were all killed the same way, but there isn't a cut or scratch on any of them.' 'Your point?' Sinclair cocked his head attentively. 'Whoever did this was in a hurry. The victims had no time to react or defend themselves. I think those downstairs were all dead within seconds of the door being smashed in.' 'Which means the killings were deliberate. That was the intention from the outset.' The chief inspector paused, reflecting on what he had said. 'So much for a robbery gone wrong! Anything else?' 'The weapon, sir. It was unusual. No injuries to the hands and arms, as I said. And then there's Colonel Fletcher, killed from behind in that way.' 'Would you care to be more specific?' Sinclair frowned. 'Have you any idea what it was?' Madden shrugged. 'I'd rather hear what the pathologist says. I don't want to put ideas in his head.' 'Or mine?' The chief inspector raised an eyebrow. 'But as regards Colonel Fletcher, I take your meaning. You'd think he would have faced his attacker. Why did he turn and run?' 'He might have been trying for one of the guns in the study.' 'Even so, an old soldier . . . You'd expect him to take on a man with a knife. If it was a knife . . .' Sinclair grimaced. 'An armed gang? Could they be right?' He gestured towards the terrace. Madden shook his head. 'I think it was one man,' he said. The chief inspector looked hard at him. 'I was hoping you wouldn't say that,' he admitted. Madden shrugged. 'I have the same feeling.' Sinclair's gaze shifted to the house. 'It's got the smell of madness about it. That's one man's work. But we have to be sure. What about the woman upstairs, Mrs Fletcher? There could have been two of them.' Again Madden shook his head. 'He broke the door down and killed the maid in the drawing-room, then went for Colonel Fletcher. The colonel tried to reach the study -- where the guns were - but he only got as far as the doorway before he was caught from behind. As for the woman in the kitchen, the nanny, I doubt she even knew what was happening. You can see the surprise in her face.' While Madden was speaking Sinclair had taken a briar pipe from his pocket. He stood now, tapping the empty bowl in the palm of his hand. 'Aye, but that still doesn't explain Mrs Fletcher. She wasn't killed like the others.' 'I think she heard the disturbance and came down the stairs. That's where they met. Did you notice the pearls in the carpet?' The chief inspector nodded. 'From a bracelet, I'd say. It must have broken. I think he seized her there and dragged her upstairs to the bedroom. Tell the pathologist to look for bruises on the wrists and arms.' Sinclair examined the bowl of his pipe. 'If you're right, then since he didn't kill her on the stairs, he must have had something else in mind. Rape, by the look of it. Poor woman. Well, we'll know soon enough.' He slipped the pipe back into his pocket. 'That would explain why she wasn't stabbed. He wanted her alive. But what did he use to kill her with?' 'A razor, I'd say.' 'Yes, but whose? The colonel's? Or did he bring his own?' The chief inspector expelled his breath in another long sigh. He watched as a plain-clothes detective stepped over the broken door frame to deposit a white envelope in a numbered cardboard box, one of four standing in a row on the terrace.