As If By Magic: Locked-Room Mysteries and Other Miraculous Crimes by Martin Edwards

Author:Martin Edwards [Edwards, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Detective and Mystery Fiction, Golden Age Crime Fiction
Publisher: British Library Publishing
Published: 2025-03-12T13:15:39.380000+00:00

It was not a pleasant sight which greeted them when Wilson pulled open the door of the little dark telephone cabinet; and it thoroughly justified Mr. Barton’s confidence in his own verdict. On the floor, crumpled up, with one foot half across the sill of the door, lay what once must have been a hale man of between fifty and sixty years of age. His body had fallen in a heap, facing the telephone, and the fingers of both hands were curved as if he had died gripping something which he had subsequently dropped. But the cause of death was plain enough ; for the whole front of his face and part of his head had been pierced in a number of places, and the blood and brains which had oozed out from the wounds had covered the floor. Michael Prendergast had been through the war, and thought himself used to death ; but the sight of the old man lying shattered in that gloomy, musty shambles stirred emotions in him which he believed wholly conquered, and he had to struggle with a violent feeling of nausea before he dared step across the threshold.

“Go carefully, Michael,” Wilson warned; and Prendergast noted with shame and annoyance that he seemed wholly unmoved by the sight. “Don’t tread in more than you can help. We’ll want all the clues we can get.” He surveyed with displeasure some unmistakable footprints in the blood that covered the floor. “You’ve been in here, Mr. Barton?”

“Of course I have,” said Mr. Barton in injured tones. “I went to see if I could do anything for him, naturally. When I found I couldn’t, I looked round to see if there was a revolver or anything anywhere. In case he shot himself, you see—in case it was suicide.”

“Turn on the light, will you?” came Prendergast’s voice from where he was bending over the body. “I can’t see anything in this coal-hole.”

“It’s broken,” said Mr. Barton. “I tried it when I came in.” He was, however, obediently reaching his hand to the switch, a porcelain one of the old pattern, when Wilson forestalled him. With a handkerchief wrapped round his hand he turned the switch backwards and forwards several times, but without result.

“It’s broken all right,” he said. “Probably the bulb’s gone. You must make shift with my torch, Michael. But be as quick as you can. It’s pretty obvious that we can’t do anything for this poor fellow now, except to find his murderer, and I want to get on with that as soon as possible.” While Prendergast finished his examination he stood still in the doorway, staring at the little room as if memorizing its contents, at the telephone, which stood unperturbed on a rather high shelf at the far end, at a shelf above containing two or three old directories, and at a baize curtain which fell from the telephone shelf to the ground.

“What’s behind that curtain, do you know?” he asked Barton.

“Boots-and some old rubbish, I think,” the latter replied.

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