The Silk Stocking Murders

‘It’s about all we’ve got to go on,’ said the Chief Inspector, rather dolefully. ‘I mean, assuming that this is murder at all and that the same man’s responsible for it. That, I should say, and the note.’

‘The note? Oh, you mean the note Lady Ursula left. Yes, I’d realised of course that if it was murder, all those notes must have been written with quite a different meaning than the one everybody gave them later. The murderer’s a clever man, Moresby, there’s no getting away from it.’

‘He is that, Mr Sheringham. But there’s a bit more to be got out of Lady Ursula’s than the others. If it was murder, then that note must have meant something quite different, as you say. But its importance to us is that it was creased. You can see it at the Yard any time.’

‘I see,’ Roger nodded. ‘And it hadn’t been left in an envelope, you mean. In other words, it must have been in another envelope at one time, and therefore was definitely not written on that occasion.’

‘Or in somebody’s pocket. The paper’s a tiny bit rubbed at the creases as if it had been in a pocket. Well, Mr Sheringham, find the person to whom that note was written, and we’ve gone a long way towards solving the mystery. It’s the only clue we’ve got, but I shouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t going to be the only one we shall want. Mark my words, sir, it’s that note that’s going to clear up this affair for us, if we can only find out who it was written to.’

‘I shouldn’t be surprised,’ Roger replied non-committally. Privately, however, he did not feel so sure. He recognised that Scotland Yard was going to regard the letter as the Dominant Clue; but the method of the Dominant Clue, though often brilliantly successful (or rather, not so much brilliantly as painstakingly) was liable to fall to the ground when the clue in question did not come up to scratch. By disregarding the side-issues in these latter cases Scotland Yard had many failures in its records which a less single-aimed method, such as the French with its inductive reasoning, would almost certainly have solved; and it was no palliative to point out that the reverse also was equally true, and that there are unsolved mysteries in the French annals which the more laborious method of Scotland Yard would probably have cleared up.

A really rogue-proof detective-service, Roger had long ago decided, should not stick to one method at all, but make use of them all; and he determined that the partnership between himself and Moresby should be such a service in miniature. Let Moresby pursue the Dominant Clue and call on the organised resources of Scotland Yard to help him do so; he himself would look at the problem as a whole, from every possible side, and do his best to combine the amazing deductive powers of the Austrian criminological professors with the imaginative brilliance of the star French detectives. It is characteristic of Roger that he took this tremendous task on his shoulders with complete composure, between two pulls at his tankard.

The two settled down into a steady talk.

During the next half-hour Roger found himself much impressed with the common sense level-headedness of his colleague, whom he had been inclined to regard, in consequence of his preference for a Dominant Clue, as lacking in perception of the finesses of scientific criminology. He was also a little chagrined to find that Moresby’s knowledge of criminal history was even more complete than his own.

As the discussion progressed Roger was not the only one to make discoveries. The Chief Inspector, too, hitherto disposed to regard Roger as a volatile-witted amateur intent only upon proving impossible theories of his own erection, now found himself considerably more impressed than he had anticipated by his companion’s quick grasp of essentials and the vivid imagination he was able to bring to bear on the problem. If he had felt any misgivings about taking a leaf out of the story-books and admitting an amateur into his councils, they were not long in disappearing. By the end of half an hour the partnership was on a firm basis.

As if to mark the fact, Roger rose and replenished the tankards. The beer, it may be remarked, was a good sound XXXX, of a dark fruity colour, from a cask in the next room, Roger’s study. Oh, all you young women, distrust a man who does not drink good sound fruity XXXX with zest as you would one of your own sex who did not care to powder her nose.

‘Now it seems to me,’ said Roger as he sat down again, ‘that we’ve been talking too much at random. Let’s take things under their proper heads, one at a time. First of all the deaths themselves. We’ve agreed that any other hypothesis but that of murder is putting too great a strain on coincidence, haven’t we? Well, then, let’s take a leaf out of the French notebook and reconstruct the crime.’

‘Very well, Mr Sheringham, sir. I’d like to hear you do that.’

‘Well, this is how I see it. The murderer first of all selected his victim with a good deal of care. She must fulfil certain conditions. For instance, she must above all be so far familiar with his appearance, at any rate, as to feel no alarm on seeing him. Then the opportunity would be chosen with equal cunning. It must be when she is alone and likely to remain so for at least half an hour. But all that’s quite elementary.’

‘There’s never any harm in running over the elementary parts with the rest,’ said the Chief Inspector, gazing into the fire.

‘Well, having got the girl and the opportunity together, he proceeds to overpower her. I say that, because no girl is going to submit tamely to being hanged, still less is she going to take off one of her stockings and offer it for the purpose; and yet none of them show any obvious evidence of a struggle. Even the marks on Lady Ursula’s wrists can’t be called that. Well, now, how did he overpower them?’

‘That’s it,’ observed Chief Inspector Moresby.

‘He was devilish clever,’ Roger continued, warming to his work. ‘You try overpowering an ordinary, healthy girl and see whether there isn’t going to be a deuce of a struggle. Of course there is. So it’s an elementary deduction to say that he must be a strong, and probably very big man. And they didn’t even cry out. Obviously, then, he must have stopped that first. I’m not so childish, by the way, as to suggest chloroform or anything fatuous like that; anybody but the writers of penny dreadfuls knows that chloroform doesn’t act like that, to say nothing of the smell afterwards. No, what I do suggest is a woollen scarf thrown unexpectedly across her mouth from behind and drawn tight in the same instant. How’s that?’

‘I can’t think of anything better, and that’s a fact.’

‘Well, a strong man could easily knot that at the back of her head, catch her wrists (her hands would be instinctively trying to pull at the stuff over her mouth) and twist them into the small of her back. I admit that it’s more of a job to fasten them there, but a knowledge of ju-jitsu might help; he could put her, I mean, in such a position that she couldn’t move without breaking an arm, hold both her wrists there with one hand and tie them together with the other. And as there are only the faintest bruises there, he would obviously have to fasten them with something that isn’t going to cut the skin—one end of the same woollen scarf, for instance.’ Roger paused and moistened his clay.