Five to Five by D. Erskine Muir

Author:D. Erskine Muir
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Golden age mysteries British;1930s murder mysteries;vintage police procedural;fictional mystery based on true crime
Publisher: Moonstone Press
Published: 2021-11-12T20:54:54+00:00

‌Chapter IX

The Hypothesis

All in the lust for money, to get gold.

Why, lie, rob, if it must be, murder.

The Pope, R. Browning.

A day later—the second day after the murder in fact—Inspector Woods sat at his desk, and surveyed the notes he had made to sum up his estimate of the case. He felt satisfaction and a vague excitement, for at last the mists were beginning to clear away. His meditations, and patient getting together of little pieces of information, were achieving something. He now had a definite conception of the crime in his mind, which he felt sure was correct.

Just as the watcher in the street had looked from the staircase into the illuminated room opposite, so Woods was seeing mentally that room, and gradually, in his imagination, events seemed to enact themselves before his eyes.

Woods was an able man. He had quick perceptions, the power of fitting things together swiftly. He had imagination, and could visualize scenes with extraordinary clearness, and sometimes he allowed his imagination to set this power to work in connexion with a crime. He had now reached this stage in the investigation of the “flat murder”, as the Ewing case had come to be called, and he deliberately evoked before his mental vision the scene which his fragmentary knowledge enabled him to reconstruct.

The inquest had been held that morning, and certain points had been made clear. The medical evidence showed definitely that Simon Ewing had been struck down where the body was found, on the hearth beside his chair. Dr. Carr’s first conclusions were corroborated. Ewing had been seated in his chair, he had risen to his feet and had been struck on the head, and had pitched forward heavily to the ground. Ten or eleven subsequent blows had been showered on him as he lay prostrate. There was nothing clenched in his hands, which were uninjured, though much stained with blood from the head wounds. The position of the first heavy blow showed that he had been leaning forward, with his head slightly turned to the left.

The complete orderliness of the flat, especially of the drawing-room, showed that there had been no struggle, no alarm. After Nurse Edwards had gone out Ewing had been alone in his drawing-room, presumably writing, for the bureau was open, his writing-board laid out by his chair, and the lid off the ink-stand. A sheet of paper, with the date written on it, lay on the blotter. The pen lying beside it had made a blurred trail across the sheet. Then a ring had come at the bell, as was proved by the evidence proffered by Doreen and Anne Godfrey. The murderer had rung that bell, the time showed that clearly. The two Godfreys had heard the sound of it ringing when Henry Godfrey entered his aunt’s flat. Henry himself had not noticed it, but his wife and sister were positive. Less than ten minutes later had come the crash and thud on the ceiling. It was therefore certain that

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