Speedy Death Read Online Free PDF Page A

be no doubt, I am sorry to say,’ said Carstairs. ‘Did not Mountjoy lose two fingers on the left hand after an accident with a gun on one of his hunting trips?’
    ‘Yes, he did. I have observed the deformity more than once.’
    ‘I noticed the left hand of the corpse when we carried it into the bedroom,’ said Carstairs simply. ‘The two fingers are missing.’
    Alastair Bing groaned.
    ‘There will be an inquest, of course,’ he said. ‘And now, I suppose, there will be all sorts of scandaloustales bandied about. Eleanor will be most upset. We have always been so quiet here——’
    ‘I don’t see that there need be any scandal,’ said Carstairs. ‘There is no need for anybody to know that the dead woman ever pretended to be a man. None of the village people know anything about her, do they? No, what concerns me is the fact that she was murdered.’
    ‘You have no proof! You have no right to make such a statement!’ cried Alastair. ‘I cannot imagine what cause you have for saying such a terrible thing. Don’t you see—can you not realize that you are virtually accusing someone in this house of having done to death a fellow-creature? It is monstrous to think such a thing, let alone say it. Besides, where is your evidence?’
    ‘If I had any evidence that I could put to the proof, Bing, we should be compelled to call in the police,’ replied Carstairs. ‘As to the suggestion that the murderer is a person residing here, well, I cannot see that it is necessarily the truth.’
    ‘But I say that if—mind, I am not convinced that the murder
was
committed—but, if so, then the criminal is someone living in this house, and knowing the ways of this house. Look at the time of day, for instance. My dinner-hour is an unusually early one, and yet the criminal, if criminal there was, carried out his unholy act at a time when everybody else was dressing for dinner. That is to say, at a time when everybody, and yet, in a sense, when nobody can fully account for himself or herself. You understand me?’
    ‘Upon my word, Bing,’ said Carstairs, ‘you are quite right. Nobody can have a hole-proof alibi, and yet everybody has only to assert that he was dressing for dinner and no one can contradict him. This is going to be extremely awkward.’
    ‘Again,’ pursued Alastair, checking off the points on his fingers, ‘look what knowledge of the house is shown. The bathroom the deceased was using at the time—the fact that the window was open at the top——’
    ‘The fact,’ cried Carstairs, almost dancing with excitement, ‘that the intruder knew that poor Mountjoy would not even cry out at the sight of him as he clambered in through the window. That point puzzles me horribly. I mean, people don’t ordinarily visit other people in the bathroom, do they? And it is quite certain that Mountjoy did
not
cry out, for I made tests this morning, and discovered that even with both taps running I could be heard when I shouted for help. So the murderer could not have been a stranger to Mountjoy. On the contrary——’ He paused, as a new and curious thought struck him.
    ‘Go on,’ prompted Alastair Bing. ‘Although, I must confess,’ he added hastily, ‘that I think your hypothesis utterly untenable. Mountjoy could not have been murdered. For one thing, how did the murderer get into the bathroom? You are not going to suggest that Mountjoy kindly left the door unlocked to save the killer trouble, are you? And as for the window being open at the top, itmay have been, but the murderer did not get in that way.’
    ‘Why didn’t he?’ asked Carstairs keenly.
    ‘Because it is a physical impossibility,’ replied Alastair. ‘You seem to forget that the bathroom window is at least forty feet above ground-level, and there is no foothold for climbing. There’s not even a porch or an outhouse on that wall. Come outside, and I will show you what I mean.’
    ‘No, there, is no porch or outhouse, I know, but there is a