Checkmate to Murder: A Second World War Mystery (British Library Crime Classics Book 82) by E.C.R. Lorac

Author:E.C.R. Lorac [Lorac, E.C.R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Second World War, golden age, wartime, Detection Club, police procedural, WW2, traditional mystery
Publisher: British Library Publishing
Published: 2020-08-10T05:00:00+00:00

III

“I’d like to give this house the once-over again while it’s still daylight,” said Reeves, as he and Macdonald left Jenkins to his secretarial work.

“Right. We’ll go over it together. It’ll be an exhilarating experience for you,” said Macdonald. “Upstairs to begin with.”

Reeves glanced at once at the treads of the stairs before he mounted them: there were footmarks showing in the sooty dust which lay thickly on the bare boards, but these footmarks were all close to the hand-rail side. Macdonald said:

“Yes, the dust has its uses. Those footmarks are ours. No one else has been up these stairs for weeks, probably months. The dust is lying like a pall everywhere, and every footstep shows.”

There were four rooms—two front and two back—on the second floor, and a ladder led up to the loft above, in the roof.

“No object in climbing that,” said Macdonald. “The loft is bare except for a couple of broken chairs, and some cracked china. I’ve had the tanks emptied—nothing but soot.”

They glanced in at each of the small bedrooms: all four were empty, their walls mildewed and damp-stained, doors and wainscot cracked and peeling. Reeves went to one of the back windows and looked down at the studio roof—sheets of corrugated iron much in need of painting. There had apparently once been a pole for a flag on the gable end of the studio, close to a disused chimney pot. The pole lay forlornly on the iron roof, and loops of the cord still festooned the gable and hung flapping a yard or two down the wall, tapping miserably in the wind. It was a forlorn and melancholy prospect of an ugly and neglected structure. Beyond Reeves could see into the garden of Sedgemoor Avenue, where Miss Stanton was still busy with her rake.

On the first floor there were also four rooms—two large bedrooms with small dressing-rooms opening out of them, and in addition was an antique bathroom and lavatory. The only furnished room was Mr. Folliner’s bedroom.

“The old man sold everything except the contents of his own bedroom and such junk as even the rag and bone men wouldn’t give him a penny for,” said Macdonald. “Any broken sticks of furniture or packing cases or anything else which would burn he used for his fire. Not much chance for anyone to hide anything here in a hurry There’s the chimneys, and under the floor-boards—we’ve drawn a blank everywhere.”

On the ground floor, in the hall, there was one relic left, a much battered grandfather clock. It had evidently been through a minor earthquake, for its face was broken, its panels cracked, and its door missing. Reeves glanced inside the case: the pendulum had dropped off, the weights and chains were missing.

“Sold the weights and chains and was in process of burning the case,” said Reeves. “Any of the works left?”

“Yes, but they’re rusted into a solid whole—even the junk man wouldn’t fancy them—and old Folliner was no believer in giving things for salvage,” said Macdonald. “There’s nothing hidden among said works.

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