The Shop Window Murders

He nodded. He was glad he had come. ‘You mean she was temperamentally cold?’

‘Yes, I am sure she was. She wouldn’t go anywhere for adventures. She wasn’t that type.’

‘But undoubtedly she did go to the Stores yesterday.’

She shrugged. ‘I see you are wondering where Mr Mander came in? She never mentioned him to me except in connection with business, but if he was infatuated with her, he would stand a lot, wouldn’t he?’

‘“Faint yet pursuing”,’ quoted Devenish, thoughtfully; ‘well, that sort of thing has happened. But if he was infatuated with her, and her engagement to Mr Kephim was announced, would it help her? You are hinting so far at an ambitious but cold woman who might lure Mander on to improve her own position.’

‘That’s how I see her. But did Mr Mander know that she was engaged to Kephim?’

He bit his lip. ‘That is a point. But it would be bound to come out.’

Mrs Hoe offered him a cigarette, and lit one herself. ‘That may be the trouble,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think so?’

‘You have met her fiancé, Mr Kephim?’ he asked, letting the other question slide.

‘Several times. It struck me that he was a nervous man, and rather in awe of her.’

‘I suppose you could not say if he was likely to be a jealous man?’

‘Let us say “guess”, inspector. You corrected me before on that. I should certainly say he—guess he—might be jealous. He was very much wrapped up in her. But then you would have to prove he was there—’

Devenish shrugged.

‘We don’t know where Mr Kephim was last night.’

She stared. The journalist in her made her avid for details, though she had no intention of selling them. It was not her line, even if she had not remembered Kephim; timid and affectionate, one of those weak men that some women naturally like and despise at the same time.

‘Has he no alibi?’

Devenish did not say yes or no. He simply told her one of the bits of stock knowledge a detective-officer is bound to pick up.

‘Ah, that’s one of the layman’s ideas,’ he said lightly. ‘We generally find that only a lunatic fails to provide an alibi of some sort.’

She smiled. ‘He is a well-known rifle shot, but, if you will forgive me saying so, the idea of a rifle is absurd. Where’s the bullet? Why use a rifle at all? Why use a knife, and then a rifle? And where is the rifle? Can’t you fire a high-velocity bullet from an automatic?’

‘A certain length of barrel is necessary for high velocity, I believe,’ he replied; ‘the Mauser pistol is one of the few automatics sighted to a fairly long range. For that reason, you can have a skeleton shoulder-stock fitted to it. But there are technical reasons why we don’t think the bullet was fired by a Mauser.’