The Dusky Hour Read Online Free PDF Page A

Sevens estate, but none the less utterly remote from oneself.
    â€œAre you sure?” he asked. “I mean, what for?... Have you any idea?”
    â€œWell, we haven’t much to go on at present,” the colonel answered. “One of Markham’s men, on his way to work this morning, noticed car-tracks and broken bushes near the Battling Copse chalk-pit. He didn’t think much of it – not a quick thinker, probably. Later he mentioned it to some of his mates and Mr. Markham heard of it, and went down to have a look himself. He saw at once something had gone over the edge of the pit, and there below was the car, upside-down, with the poor chap who had been driving it lying all smashed up by its side. He sent word to Norris, Norris reported, and when I heard I thought I had better come along myself. From the first I didn’t think it looked like an accident. Of course, a skid at a high rate of speed might have done it. But there was no sign of that. And to get there off the road would mean a sharp turn for no apparent reason and then forcing a way through bushes that even in the middle of the night or a fog would have shown any driver he was off the road. It looks as if the car had been parked there for some time, out of the way, and then deliberately driven over the edge.”
    â€œBut that would be suicide,” Mr. Moffatt exclaimed.
    Colonel Warden made no reply. Detective-Sergeant Owen still seemed absorbed in his map, even though at the same time he was watching and listening attentively. Mr. Moffatt was beginning to feel vaguely uncomfortable. Murder seemed somehow to be creeping near – too near. No longer did it seem merely a paragraph in the paper, something fresh to chat about, an occasion for a comfortable shiver over a comfortable glass of wine. Besides, the impression was growing upon him that these two men, the burly, elderly, soldier-like colonel, the good-looking but quite ordinary young fellow from Scotland Yard, were both watching him closely, though he could not imagine why. He said:
    â€œYou have no” – what was the word? ah – “no clues?”
    â€œThere was a woman’s lipstick,” the colonel answered, “picked up near where the car went over. Nothing to prove any connection, but it certainly hadn’t been there long and Markham says he saw it long before, so far as is known, any woman had been near. And a fragment of the wrapper of a roll of photographic film. Someone found it and handed it to Norris, and Norris is sure no one had been taking snaps. No connection, most likely; it’s not usual to take snaps of murders.”
    Bobby, as if in answer to the colonel’s nod, opened an attaché-case he had with him and produced a small metal lipstick case and a fragment of a paper wrapper with enough printing on it to show what purpose it had served. Both were carefully preserved in cellophane envelopes, though the lipstick case had been trodden deep into the mould by the foot of its finder, and the fragment of wrapper had been handled by half a dozen persons before finally coming into Constable Norris’s possession.
    But routine is routine, regulations must be observed, and “Protect the evidence” remains the first standing rule of all investigation.
    â€œNot much chance of finding anything in the way of footmarks or finger-prints,” observed the colonel. “Everything was pretty thoroughly trampled over and pulled about long before Norris got there. The car had been turned right side up, the dead body carried up to one of the farm outhouses. Of course, they had no idea it was anything but an accident. There’s nothing much for us to go on – except the lipstick case and the bit of Kodak film wrapper. Oh,” he added carelessly, “and that odd incident Norris happened to see – the watching Sevens through field-glasses.”
    â€œSeems extraordinary,” agreed Mr. Moffatt uneasily.