Surfeit of Suspects by George Bellairs

Author:George Bellairs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2019-05-28T16:00:00+00:00

Nine

Takeover

Littlejohn and Cromwell met late in the afternoon of their busy day of working apart and called at Scotland Yard on their way home to discuss the results of their enquiries.

To supplement their information, they also had the report of the experts who had examined the wrecked Excelsior offices, the debris, and the bodies of the victims.

No trace of a time-device to explode the dynamite had been found. The explosive had been in the form of blasting sticks, probably two of them. It was, therefore, assumed that it had been fired by a simple ignited fuse. This would avoid the complications of electrical detonation and enable the murderer to take to his heels at once after igniting his petard.

As far as reconstruction went, it was deduced that the victims had been seated at a table in the main office; Dodd and Piper together, Fallows at some distance away from them.

Beneath the offices was a cellar, once used as a storeroom and accessible by an outer door reached by a flight of stone steps from ground level. This door, usually kept locked, had been rescued in a badly charred and battered condition at some distance from the rest of the wreckage. There was a key in the outside of the lock. It seemed certain therefore, that the murderer had planted the dynamite in the cellar under the main office, locked the cellar door and left the key behind, perhaps where he’d found it.

The full force of the explosion had been centred beneath where Dodd and Piper had been sitting. The heavy table had been blown over on top of Fallows and killed him by a crushing blow on the head. Dodd and Piper had been rendered unconscious or killed outright by the blast; in the former event, fire had finished the job.

The papers the group of men might have been studying were charred and beaten out of recognition. The fire had severely damaged the clothes of Dodd and Piper and the contents of their pockets had been reduced to dust.

On the other hand, the papers in Fallows’s pockets had been saved by the heavy table, but seemed to include nothing of importance in the case. The only item of any great interest was the envelope clutched in his hand, protected by his body. This had been used for noting down matters probably under discussion at the time of the explosion.

Cromwell passed the envelope to Littlejohn.

‘I thought I’d better bring it with me. You know more about company finance than I do. It may be clearer to you than to me, sir.’

‘You flatter me.’

Littlejohn examined the envelope.

‘O/D… 4,100… That’s plain enough. The Excelsior were overdrawn at the bank by that amount at the time, although, it seems, cheques had been issued which would take them over £5,000.

‘It’s the next item that seems silly to me, however. Takeover 5,000. Surely nobody would make a takeover bid for Excelsior. It’s bust and not worth taking as a gift, to say nothing of five thousand pounds.

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