The Bee's Kiss(53)

‘Westhorpe says she didn’t touch the body and Bill checked her pulse at the wrist.’ Joe looked pensively at the photographs in front of him. ‘Do we have the owner or owners – could be more than one subject – of these prints on record, Ralph?’

‘’Fraid not, sir.’ Cottingham sighed. ‘The Criminal Record Office have ransacked their card indexes and come up with nothing. Our boy has kept his nose clean until now. We’ll just have to come up with a suspect first and match him to what we’ve got. Still, it’s better than nothing.’

‘And we know that our bloke must have left the murder room somewhat bloodstained,’ Joe mused. ‘He could have cleaned up in the bathroom and then cleaned the bathroom but he’d have still been at his housework when Westhorpe arrived, surely?’

‘Or he’d have run straight into Constable Westhorpe in the corridor,’ said Cottingham finishing for him. ‘But he didn’t. So did he leave by the window, dropping the poker as he went?’

‘Having put his gloves back on again?’ objected Joe. ‘Doesn’t add up. We know he was wearing gloves when he got in through the window. Why in hell did he take them off to grasp a poker and take a whack at the Dame? Then, having conveniently left his dabs on the murder weapon, he gloves up again, exits, and leaves the thing where we were bound to find it on the roof?’

‘Someone’s playing games with us, sir.’

‘And don’t forget Sergeant Armitage was patrolling outside. He’d have to be blind and deaf to avoid seeing a bloke covered in blood clutching a jemmy and an emerald necklace shimmying down the drainpipes. Bill’s one of the most alert men I’ve ever served with. I honestly think no one would have got up the building, shattered a strong Ritz window and climbed down without him being aware. You know, Ralph, I incline to the suspicion that the killing wasn’t done at all by someone coming through that window . . . Leaving nothing out for the moment, of course, but let’s just think about this. Could all that glass smashing have been a distraction? Have you got the plan you drew up at the scene?’

Joe noticed that Cottingham already had it in his hand. His inspector betrayed by a quick smile of satisfaction that he had got there before the boss.

‘The pane was smashed from the outside – no doubt of that – but it could have been done by opening the window and standing inside the room to do it. And you’d expect to find the shards of glass,’ he pointed with a pencil, ‘here, right below the window in this sort of pattern.’ He paused. ‘And we did. But I took the opportunity of returning to the scene yesterday before cleaning took place. I got the temporary boarding removed and with daylight streaming through the window –’ his moustache bristled with triumph barely held in check – ‘I found quite another pattern, sir, which I have drawn up here.’

He produced a larger scale plan of the window area. ‘Shards, as I say, here right where you’d look for them but also marks, scrape marks across the nap of the Wilton carpet, here near the south wall. And also splinters of glass so small we didn’t see them on the night of the murder.’

‘So someone stood here at the window, swung it open and smashed it from inside. Someone bright enough and cool enough to sweep the shards into exactly the place you’d look for them.’

Cottingham nodded. ‘And there’s more. I took samples of the bigger pieces and sent them to the lab for microscope analysis. Well, you never know . . . just in case . . .’ He pushed another sheet across the desk. ‘One of them had tiny fibres of cotton attached, sir. Ivory, Egyptian. Matches exactly the Ritz bathroom towels. Our lad had muffled the sound of breaking glass.’

Joe smiled. ‘What a performance! But at least Bill will be pleased to hear there may be, after all, nothing wrong with his hearing . . .. Oh, thanks, Charlie!’

They curled their fists around the china mugs and thoughtfully sipped the strong Assam brew.

‘Right, then. We’re looking for someone large, a man most probably, who was admitted to the Dame’s room – and therefore, we assume, was known to her – had a violent quarrel with her and killed her, apparently with some passion. Then he calmly and – does the word “professionally” intrude here, Ralph? – fakes up the burglar-through-the-window business and gets away, somehow managing to avoid being seen by Westhorpe on her way up.’

‘That’s about it, sir.’

‘And if a certain level of climbing ability is no longer required of our suspect, it looks as if Orlando could be joined in the gallery by a few more suspects. That Monty Mathurin, Cottingham – he’s moved up a few places. We’ll go and call on him.’