Murder on the Liverpool Express (A Jules Poiret Mystery Book 17) Read online

  “Now we have them all. Stand aside, Swift and I will order the passengers to come in. We will then determine their berths and attach their names to their compartments. Call them in, Noble, one by one.”

  The questions put forth by Inspector Watkins were in all cases the same and were limited in this early stage of the inquiry into the identity of the persons in the sleeper.

  The first, who entered was a Mancunian. He was a jovial, baby-faced, rotund man, who answered to the name of Bertie Woodward. He described himself as a simple salesman in diamonds from Manchester. The berth he had occupied was No. 13. His companion in the compartment was a younger man, smaller, thinner, but of much the same character. His name was Roger Wolf and he was an insurance agent. His berth had been No. 15. Both Mancunians gave their addresses and provided the names of many people to whom they were known and thereby established immediately a reputation of respectability for themselves, which was held in their favour.

  The third to appear was the tall Yorkshireman, who had taken a certain lead at the first discovery of the crime. He called himself Lord Barry Henderson, an officer in her Majesty’s army. The prison warden, who shared the compartment with him was his uncle, Warden Timothy Spall, of Dartmoor Prison, in the county of Devon. Their berths were numbered 1 and 4.

  Before the lord was dismissed, he asked whether he was likely to be detained for long.

  “For the present, yes,” replied Inspector Watkins, briefly. He did not care to be asked questions. That, under the circumstances, was his business, he felt.

  “I should like to communicate with my commanding officer.”

  “You are known at any barracks?” asked the detective, not choosing to believe the man’s identity. At that time there were many fake aristocrats in London looking for an easy way to defraud the naïve and the easily misled.

  “I know Lord Cowell personally. I was with him in India. Also Colonel Brooks, we were in the same regiment. If I sent word to the barracks, the latter would, no doubt, come himself.”

  “How do you propose to send this word?”

  “That is for you to decide. All I wish is that it should be known that my uncle and I are detained under suspicion and incriminated.”

  “Hardly that, sir. But it shall be as you wish. We will telephone from here to the barracks to inform your commanding officer...”

  “Certainly, Lord Cowell and my friend, Colonel Brooks.”

  “…of what has occurred. And now, if you will permit me to proceed?”

  So the single occupant of the compartment, that adjoined the Yorkshiremen, was called in. He was a Welshman, by the name Patrick Stewart. His hair was red and his bristling moustache was black. He wore a long dark cloak and, with the slouch hat he carried in his hand and his downcast, secretive look, he had the rather conventional look of a conspirator.

  “If you permit me, sir,” he volunteered after the formal questioning was over, “I can throw some light on this crime.”

  “And how so, pray? Did you assist? Were you present? If so, why wait to speak till now?” said the detective, receiving the advance rather coldly. He had to be very much on his guard.

  “I have had no opportunity till now of addressing any one in authority. You are in authority, I presume?”

  “I am an inspector in Scotland Yard.”

  “Then, sir, remember, please, that I can give some useful information when called upon. Now, indeed, if you will listen to me.”

  Inspector Watkins was so anxious to approach the inquiry without prejudice that he put up his hand.

  “We will wait, if you please. That will do now, thank you.”

  The Welshman’s lip curled with a slight indication of contempt at the detective’s methods, but he bowed without speaking and went out.

  Last of all the lady appeared, in a long fur coat and veiled. She answered Inspector Watkins’s questions in a low voice, as though greatly upset.

  She was Baroness Bluemayne, she said, a Yorkshirewoman by birth, but her husband had been a Welshman, as the name implied and they resided in Liverpool. He was dead. She had been a widow for two and a half years and was on her way now to London.

  “That will do, Madam, thank you,” said the detective, politely. “For the present at least.”

  “Why, are we likely to be detained? I trust not.” Her voice became appealing, almost pleading. Her hands, trembling, showed how much she was distressed.

  “Indeed, Madam, it must be so. I regret it very much, but until we have gone further into this, have investigated some facts, arrived at some conclusions. But there, Madam, I need not, must not say more.”

  “Oh, sir, I was so anxious to continue my journey. Friends are waiting for me. I do hope…I most earnestly beg and entreat you to spare me. I am not very strong. My health is not very good. Do, sir, be so good as to release me immediately from…”

  As she spoke, she raised her veil and showed what no woman wishes to hide, least of all when seeking the goodwill of a man. She had a pretty face, strikingly so. Not even the long journey, the fatigue, the worries and anxieties could rob her of her great beauty.

  She was a radiant brunette and her skin as soft and lustrous as pure ivory. Her big eyes, of a deep velvety brown, were saddened, near tears. She had rich red lips, the only colour in her face and these, usually slightly apart, showed pearly-white glistening teeth.

  It was difficult to look at this charming woman without being affected by her beauty. Inspector Watkins was gallant and impressionable. Yet he steeled his heart. A detective must avoid sentiment and he seemed to see something insidious in her appeal, which he resented.

  “Madam, it is useless,” he answered roughly. “I do not make the law. I have only to support it. Every good citizen is bound to that.”

  “I trust I am a good citizen,” said the baroness, with a faint smile. “Still, I should wish to be let off now. I have suffered greatly, terribly, by this horrible event. My nerves are quite shaken. It is too cruel. However, I can say no more, except to ask that you will let my maid come to me.”

  Inspector Watkins, still stubborn, would not consent to that.

  “I fear, Madam, that for the present at least you cannot be allowed to communicate with anyone, not even with your maid.”

  “But she is not implicated. She was not in the carriage. I have not seen her since…”

  “Since when?” asked Watkins, after a pause.

  “Since last night, in Sheffield, about eight o’clock. She helped me to undress and saw me to bed. I sent her away then and said I would not need her till we reached London. But I want her now, I do.”

  “She did not come to you in Leicester?”

  “No. Have I not said so? The conductor,” here she pointed to the man, who stood staring at her from the other side of the table, “he made difficulties about her being in the carriage, saying that she came too often, stayed too long, that I must pay for her berth and so on. I did not see why I should do that. That is why she stayed away.”

  “Except from time to time she came to you?”

  “Precisely.”

  “And the last time was in Sheffield?”

  “That’s what I have told you and he will say the same.”

  “Thank you, Madam, that will do.” The inspector rose from his chair, plainly intimating that the interview was at an end.

  He had other work to do and was eager to get at it. So he left Policeman Noble to show the baroness back to the waiting room and, motioning to the conductor that he might also go, the inspector hastened to the sleeper, the examination of which, delayed enough, claimed his attention.

  It is the first duty of a good detective to visit the actual scene of a crime and reviewing it inch by inch, looking, searching, investigating, looking for any, even the most insignificant traces of the murderer.

  The sleeper was under strict watch and ward. But everyone, of course, gave way before the inspector and, breaking through the seals, he walked in, walking straight to the little room, wh
ere the body of the victim still lay untouched.

  It was a frightful sight, although not new in Inspector Watkins’s experience. There lay the corpse in the narrow berth, just as it had been stricken. It was partially undressed, wearing only shirt and drawers. The former lay open at the chest and showed the gaping wound that had, no doubt, caused death, probably instantaneous death. But there were other signs of violence. There must have been a struggle, as for dear life. The murderer had triumphed, but not until he had battered the face so violently that recognition was almost impossible.

  A knife had been the cause of death. That was immediately apparent from the shape of the wound. Inspector Watkins examined the body closely, but without disturbing it. The police doctor would wish to see it as it was found.

  The inspector looked long and with concentrated interest at the murdered man, noting all he actually saw and inferring a good deal more.

  The features of the face were hardly recognizable, but the hair, which was abundant, was long, blond and inclined to curl. The moustache was thick and drooping. The shirt was of fine linen, the drawers silk. On one finger he was wearing two rings, the hands were clean, the nails well kept and there was every evidence that the man did not live by manual labour.

  This conclusion was supported by his baggage, which still lay about the berth, hat-box, brown leather handbag. All were the property of someone well to do. One or two pieces bore a monogram, “E.S.” the same as on the shirt and under-linen. On the bag was a luggage label with the name, “Edward Sykes, passenger to London,” in full. Its owner had apparently no reason to conceal his name. More strangely, those, who had done him in had not meant to remove all traces of his identity.

  Inspector Watkins opened the handbag, looking for more evidence. He found nothing of importance, only loose collars, cuffs, a sponge and slippers and two old Welsh newspapers. No money, valuables or documents. All these had been removed, presumably by the perpetrator of the crime.

  Having settled these first points, he next surveyed the whole compartment critically. Now, for the first time, he was struck with the fact that the window was open to its full height. But since when was this? It was a question he wished to put to the conductor and any others, who had entered the carriage. The discovery drew him to examine the window more closely and with good results.

  At the ledge, caught on a projecting point on the far side, partly in, partly out of the carriage, was a morsel of white lace, a scrap of feminine apparel. What part or how it had come there, was not immediately obvious to Inspector Watkins. A long and minute inspection of this bit of lace, which he was careful not to detach as yet from the place in which he found it, showed that it could not have been blown there by the wind. It must have been torn from the article to which it belonged, whatever that might be, head-dress, nightcap, night-dress or handkerchief.

  Searching further, Inspector Watkins made a second discovery. On the small table under the window was a short length of black jet beading, part of the trimming of a lady’s dress.

  These two objects of feminine origin, one partly outside the car, the other near it, but inside led to the inevitable conclusion that a woman had been at some time or other in the berth. Inspector Watkins could not but connect these two finds with the fact of the open window. The latter might, of course, have been the work of the murdered man himself at an earlier hour. Yet it was unusual, as the detective imagined, for a passenger to lie under an open window in a sleeping-berth when travelling by express train at night in winter.

  Who opened that window and why? The inspector wished to know what he could see on the outside of the compartment. Close scrutiny revealed nothing unusual. The exterior of the carriage was encrusted with the mud and dust gathered during the journey, none of which appeared to have been disturbed.

  Inspector Watkins went back into the carriage neither disappointed nor pleased. His mind was open, ready to receive any clues and as yet only one had presented itself to him.

  This was the presence of the lace and the jet beads on the scene of the crime. The conclusion was simple. Some woman had entered the compartment. Whether or not she had come in before the crime, she was there after the window had been opened, which was not done by the murdered man. She had leaned out or partly gone out of the window as the scrap of lace testified.

  “But why had she leaned out?” asked Watkins. “To leave or maybe escape?”

  But escape from whom? The murderer? Then she must know him. Unless he was an accomplice, she would have told what she had seen already.

  There was, however, another even stronger reason to attempt escape at such great risk as leaving an express train at full speed. To escape from detection and arrest and punishment.

  These reasons would impel even a weak woman to face the worst risks, to look out, lean out, even try the terrible but impossible feat of climbing out of the car, going at full speed.

  So Inspector Watkins reached the conclusion that incriminated one woman, the only woman possible and that was the high-bred Baroness Bluemayne.

  His conclusion gave direction to his investigation. Consulting the rough draft, which he had made of the carriage, he entered the compartment, which the baroness had occupied and which was next door.

  It was in the untidy condition of a sleeping-place only just vacated. The sex and rank of its occupant were plainly apparent in the items lying about, the property of a delicate, well-bred woman. The things were left as she had used them last, a pair of slippers on the floor, the sponge on the bed, brushes, bottles, many items belonging in a dressing-bag, but not yet returned to it. The maid was no doubt to have attended to all these, but as she had not come, they remained unpacked and strewn about in some disorder.

  Inspector Watkins pounced down upon the contents of the berth and began an immediate search for a lace scarf or any clothes with lace.

  He found nothing, but was hardly disappointed. It meant the baroness, who, if she was innocent, would have no reason to conceal possibly incriminating items, the need for which would not have been there.

  Next, he returned all items to the dressing-bag with deft fingers. Everything fitted in its rightful place, except for one glass bottle, a small one, the absence of which he noted, but thought of little consequence.

  After walking through the other compartments, Watkins carefully inspected the corner, where the conductor had his own small bunk, his only resting-place, throughout the journey. He had not forgotten his condition, when first examined and he had even then been satisfied that the man had been drugged.

  Any doubts were entirely removed when near the conductor’s seat he found a small silver-topped bottle and a handkerchief, both marked with coronet and monogram. Although the letters were interlaced and intricate, they spelled R. B.

  It was that of the baroness and corresponded with the monograms on her other belongings. He put it to his nostril and recognized immediately by its smell that it had contained sleeping medicine.

  Inspector Watkins was an experienced detective and he knew well that he ought to be on his guard against coming to a conclusion too fast. He therefore did not like to make too much of these discoveries. Still, he was satisfied with his investigation and he went back towards the station with a strong suspicion against Baroness Bluemayne.

  Just outside the waiting room, however, his assistant, Sergeant Jones, met him with news, which dashed his hopes and gave a new direction to his investigation.

  The lady’s maid could not be found.

  “Impossible!” cried the inspector and immediately suspicion followed surprise.

  “I have looked, sir, inquired everywhere. The maid has not been seen. She certainly isn’t here.”

  “Did she go through the barrier with the other passengers?”

  “No one knows. No one remembers her. But she’s gone. That’s the truth.”

  “Yet it was her duty to be here. Her mistress would certainly need her. She has asked for her. Why would she run away?”

  This qu
estion presented itself as one of huge importance, to be resolved before he went further with the inquiry.

  Did the baroness know of her disappearance?

  She asked for her maid. That was true, but was that not a trick? Women are born actresses and when needed can play any part, give any impression. Might not the baroness have wished to be dissociated from her maid and therefore have affected complete ignorance of her flight?

  “I will interrogate her further,” said Inspector Watkins to himself.

  But suppose that the maid had left of her own accord? Why was it? Why had she done so? Was she afraid of something? If so, of what? No direct accusation could be brought against her at the moment. She had not been in the sleeper at the time of the murder, while the baroness certainly was and very likely in the very compartment, where the deed was done.

  She might be either in collusion with the baroness or had some knowledge incriminating the baroness and probably herself. She had run away to avoid any inconvenient questioning, which might get her mistress in trouble, who would retaliate against her.

  “We must put the screws on the baroness on this issue,” said the detective, as he entered the room set apart for the police authorities, where he found an angry Jules Poiret, the famous detective, waiting for him. He had been on his way to his annual retreat in Brighton to give his world class mind the rest it deserved. The greeting was amicable and heartfelt. As Poiret had missed his train and had some time to pass before the next one, Watkins suggested he accompany him.

  Inspector Watkins told all he knew, all he had discovered, gave his views with all the force and fluency of a prosecutor and was congratulated warmly on the progress he had made.

  “Poiret, he agrees with you, mon ami,” said the master detective, “we must talk to the baroness first and pursue the line indicated as regards to the missing maid.”

  “I will fetch her.” He frowned. “Say, what’s going on in there?” he cried, rising from his seat and running into the waiting room, which to his surprise, he found in great confusion.