Mystery at Olympia

Mystery at Olympia
John Rhode

The next time you visit Olympia, take a good look around and see if you think it would be possible to murder someone in the middle of the crowd there without being seen.The new Comet was fully expected to be the sensation of the annual Motor Show at Olympia. Suddenly, in the middle of the dense crowd of eager spectators, an elderly man lurched forward and collapsed in a dead faint. But Nahum Pershore had not fainted. He was dead, and it was his death that was to provide the real sensation of the show.A post-mortem revealed no visible wound, no serious organic disorder, no evidence of poison. Doctors and detectives were equally baffled, and the more they investigated, the more insoluble the puzzle became. Even Dr Lancelot Priestley’s un-rivalled powers of deduction were struggling to solve this case.

Copyright (#ulink_d1a8f8ea-4a08-5d52-a096-a1afffb7359b)

COLLINS CRIME CLUB

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First published in Great Britain by Collins Crime Club 1935

Copyright © Estate of John Rhode 1935

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1935, 2018

John Rhode asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780008268787

Ebook Edition © April 2018 ISBN: 9780008268794

Version: 2017-12-11

Contents

Cover (#uc6893768-1faf-5c68-b95d-140e0cc1e3ca)

Title Page (#u50b018b9-def0-51b8-8758-603a1b5a72e7)

Copyright (#ufb52e658-7d16-5ada-8198-38916c56a788)

Chapter I (#ube6a79bf-455b-50d2-85a0-449f03ad9a8d)

Chapter II (#u676bd63d-00e3-537c-b7ba-03552aed9c0b)

Chapter III (#uf0f1f6ea-9f8c-5670-a937-f9cec93688c3)

Chapter IV (#u94d67943-bc47-555b-92d9-260b23003f74)

Chapter V (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter VI (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter VII (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter VIII (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter IX (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter X (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter XI (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter XII (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter XIII (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter XIV (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

By the Same Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER I (#ulink_577048a1-f3d8-5029-b685-717f661c4df2)

The directors of the Comet Motor Car Company have always been remarkable for their boldness and foresight. By their adoption of new ideas, while their competitors were still mistrustful of the innovation, they have always managed to keep Comet cars just a little more up-to-date than the latest models produced by their rivals. But their acquisition of the patent rights in the Lovell Transmission, and the application of that ingenious invention to all their cars, from the largest to the smallest, provided a sensation which will not readily be forgotten by the motoring public.

To that public the appearance of the Lovell Transmission was of dramatic suddenness. Nobody outside the Comet works at Coventry knew of the months of research and experiment carried on behind locked doors. The young inventor himself, Charles Lovell, had worked night and day almost without intermission. It was said that he had to be forcibly removed from the test-bench before he would consent to take a hurried meal. And it is quite certain that during the final stages he slept in a hammock slung up at one end of the machine-shop.

But the secret was jealously guarded. Not until a week before the Olympia Motor Show was a single word allowed to leak out. And then the advertising agency which dealt with the propaganda of the Comet Motor Car Company was given its head. In every newspaper and periodical the advertisement appeared. It was announced that in future Comet cars would have no gear-box, no clutch, no radiator, and no self-starter, since all these had been rendered unnecessary by the adoption of the Lovell Transmission. No further information was vouchsafed, but the advertisements concluded with the invitation, printed in large type, ‘Come and see them on Stand 1001 at Olympia!’

This was provocative, as it was meant to be. The exhibition cars, swathed in tarpaulins, were brought to Olympia in furniture vans, each guarded by half a dozen of the firm’s employees. Still with the tarpaulins enveloping them, they were wheeled on to the stand, where their devoted guards kept an eagle-eyed watch. Not until five minutes before the show opened were the tarpaulins removed and the mysteries which they had hitherto concealed laid bare.

Stand 1001 was situated almost in the centre of the vast building. And, from the very moment when the public were admitted on the first day of the show, it became the focus of the vast crowds who paid for admittance, and perhaps even more of those that did not. The general public were inquisitive. Their curiosity had been aroused, and, like the Athenians of old, they were eager to hear or to tell of some new thing. But to the journalists, the dealers, the designers of competing makes, all those professionally concerned in the industry, the situation was agonising. To obtain information about this new move on the part of the Comet people was vital to their bread and butter.

The consequence was that during the whole duration of the show it needed the exercise of patience and perseverance to get within sight of Stand 1001. Actually to get on to it, to obtain a close view of one of the new models, might take, under the most favourable conditions, an hour or more. From ten in the morning till ten at night a closely packed throng, men and women, young and old, surged round the stand, upon which half a dozen alert young salesmen were kept busy in explaining to successive batches of visitors the advantages of the new system.

This was, of course, excellent publicity from the Comet people’s point of view. But it had its disadvantages. On the very first day of the show it was found impossible to conduct any business whatever on the overcrowded stand. Every inch of space was invaded by people anxious to see. Dealers wishing to place contracts and individual buyers were extricated from the mob and carried to the London show-rooms by a fleet of cars provided for the purpose. There, in comparative calm, they were enabled to place their orders.

On Monday, October 8th, Doctor Oldland, that prosperous Kensington practitioner, visited the Motor Show. He did so every year, and would not have missed the occasion for the world. He had a mechanical mind, to which the development of the motor car was an unfailing source of interest. But that was by no means the only attraction which the show held for him. He was not at all gregarious, preferring the company of one or two special friends to a larger assembly. But he liked to watch a crowd, to see a vast concourse of human beings obeying the same laws, flowing together in the same slow streams like so many particles of inert matter. Perhaps it satisfied his sardonic ideas upon the general futility of things. However this may be, he usually spent a good part of his time in one of the corners of the gallery, whence he could look down upon the busy scene below.

This year, though, his visit had a more immediate purpose. He had come to the conclusion that it was nearly time he bought a new car. It had taken him a long time to become reconciled to the idea. It was not the expense which had given him pause. He could have afforded a couple or more, had they been necessary. But he hated change, unless it could be proved to him that it brought with it some definite advantage. He had to be convinced, for instance, that a new drug or a new method of treatment were definite improvements upon their predecessors before he could be persuaded to adopt them himself.

Even as he paid for his admission at the turnstile, and mingled with the stream pouring into the great hall, his misgivings returned. There was nothing in the world the matter with his present car. It was only three years old, and still good for years of faithful service. True, his chauffeur had been hinting lately that it was more difficult than it used to be to keep it looking really smart. But what did that matter? Oldland told himself, with one of his queer wry smiles, that it was the same with cars as with men. A man like himself, rising fifty, must necessarily expend more energy on keeping himself smart than a spruce young fellow barely out of his teens. Like his own son Bill, for instance.