Death in Silhouette. John Russell Fearn
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guessed the truth, turned suddenly grey and fainted. In a moment her mother was fussing over her, half-dragging her away from the little group in the hall.
“Get the doctor,” Mr. Taylor snapped suddenly to Gregory. “Hurry up, lad.”
“Okay—and the police?”
“I—I don’t know—”
“I do!” Gregory said, suddenly calm with his legal mind ticking over smoothly. “It looks to me like plain suicide, but it could be murder.… I’ll call the police, too,” he decided, and dived for the front door.
“Keith!” Ambrose Robinson whispered, staring dazedly after Gregory as he dashed down the front path and left the door open. “He’s—he’s hanged himself! Hanged himself! If it is him.… But it must be! I’ve got to see him—”
“Better let me do it,” Taylor said grimly. “No job for you, he being your son.”
Ambrose Robinson hesitated and Mr. Taylor suddenly became the captain of the ship.
“Get back in the front room, all of you,” he ordered. “I’ll attend to Keith. After all, this is my house. Mother, get these two girls to help you with Pat.…”
He opened the cellar door again and swung it to behind him as he hurried down the steps. Those in the hall had hardly got into the drawing room with the unconscious Pat before Gregory came speeding back. He dived straight for the cellar door, pushed it to after him, since the lock was half off, and then hurried down the curving staircase. On the wall his father’s shadow had been added to that of the hanging figure. His father’s arm was working vigorously.
Gregory hesitated for a moment, shocked out of his usual cold reserve. His father was standing on the solitary backless chair that was the only piece of furniture in the basement. Keith Robinson was hanging from the massively thick central beam crossing the ceiling. In the beam was a rusty staple and to this had been securely knotted the clothes-rope from which the body was swinging
“For heaven’s sake, boy, give me a knife!” Taylor panted. “These knots are too tough for me.”
Gregory handed his penknife up, the blade open. His father sawed through the rope frantically and the strands finally gave. Between them they lowered the dead weight to the floor and tugged free the slipknot that had been drawn with savage tightness about the neck. The flesh of the neck was severely abrased. Keith’s eyes were staring, his tongue was lolling out. His face had turned a deep purple.
“This is awful, Dad!” Gregory whispered. “What on earth possessed him to do ir? Is he—?”
“Yes—he’s dead.” Taylor lowered the limp hand and tightened his lips. There was a look of utter wonder nore than horror on his sweating face, “Have to wait for Dr. Standish.”
“He’ll be here any minute,” Gregory said. “And the police too. In any case, Dr. Standish is the police surgeon, so it’s all the same.”
“Why—the police?” Taylor asked, speaking with effort.
“It’s suicide, isn’t it? Keith mightn’t have been dead, and in that case he could have been charged with felo de se. It might even have been murder…but don’t ask me how.”
Mr. Taylor got to his feet. Gregory did likewise. Mr. Taylor studied the cellar thoughtfully and looked up at the rope he had cut. Then he glanced at the wall.
“He used the clothes-rope which was hanging there,” he said slowly. “Then he must have stood on the chair, kicked it away from him, and—that was that. I found the chair overturned.”
Gregory looked as if he were trying to get his legal mind into focus. His father glanced up towards the doorway as there came sounds on the front path, echoing heavily at this depth. He heard the front doorbell ring. Hurried feet. Mr. Taylor moved forward to look up the curve of the staircase and saw a plump little man with a black bag hurrying down it.
“Afraid you’re too late, Doctor,” Mr. Taylor said quietly; and to Gregory he added, “Get upstairs, Greg, and tell them all what’s happened. And do it gently. They’ll have to know the facts.”
Gregory returned swiftly up the staircase, closing the door at the top. Without a word Dr. Standish—who had been present at the births of both Gregory and Pat—went down on one knee and examined the body carefully. Taylor stood waiting and watching.
“Yes,” the medico said finally, rising and dusting his knees. “Strangulation all right. The neck shows it, too. Apparently no bruises or other marks.… You’ve advised the police, Mr. Taylor?”
“They should be here at any moment.”
“They won’t particularly approve of your having cut the body down,” the doctor said.
“Won’t they?” Mr. Taylor laughed shortly. “Good God, what was I supposed to do? Let him hang? There might have been life in him. We could perhaps have saved him.”
“You should have tested his pulse first.”
“I was too confoundedly staggered to think of a thing like that.… This is the most horrible thing I’ve ever witnessed. He must have come down here, locked himself in, and then hanged himself. Right in the middle of celebrating his engagement to Pat, too!”
“Oh?” Dr. Standish shook his head. “Mmm, that is devilish, and no mistake—”
He stopped talking and turned his face expectantly. There was a pounding from the front path, the ringing of the doorbell, and then voices. In a moment or two the uniformed figures of Superintendent Haslow and Sergeant Catterall of the local police force came in view.…
* * * *
Maria Black was considerably astonished upon arriving in Cypress Avenue to behold an official police car outside the gate of No. 18, the house she wanted. She was so absorbed by the sight she nearly forgot to jam on the brakes, and stopped the Austin Seven only a couple of inches from the police car’s rear bumper. Then she sat gazing at No. 18. There was no policeman visible, except the one in the peaked uniform-cap at the wheel of the car. She did notice, however, as she moved her gaze round, that faces were peeping through lace curtains in the other houses, and that children were watching from a safe distance.
“Extraordinary,” Maria muttered, but she could feel her pulses tingling all the same. She felt like an old fire-horse which has heard the bell. Of course, the whole thing might be a coincidence. It did not say that anything was wrong in No. 18 just because a police car had parked outside it.
“Stop such idiotic conjectures, Maria!” she reproved herself. “Find out what is transpiring.”
She considered herself in the driving mirror, removed the oil-moustache from her upper lip, then climbed out of the car. With slow dignity she walked the few steps along the pavement to the police car and looked in on the waiting driver.
“Tell me, officer, is there anything—er—wrong at No. 18?” she questioned.
“The Super and Sergeant are in there, madam. A suicide, I understand.”
“A suicide?” Maria’s eyebrows rose; then she recovered her dignity, gave her costume a gentle pat, and turned to the gateway. Her ringing at the front door brought the sergeant to open it.
“Yes?” he asked, with perfect respect, and met a steady look from ice-blue eyes.
“I am Miss Black,” Maria stated calmly. “Miss Taylor is expecting me.”
The sergeant seemed to be aware of this fact. He nodded and stood to one side, motioning Maria into the hall. From here she was conducted into the front room. She came into an atmosphere still heavy with tobacco fumes. Three pale-faced young women were seated on a chesterfíeld; a youngish man with polished dark hair was in an armchair; a man like a vulture was standing with his hands clasped behind his back and his head bowed. A Superintendent of Police was considering something as he stood opposite a stout blonde woman and a good-natured-looking