Tragedy at Beechcroft by A. E. Fielding

Author:A. E. Fielding
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781839740671
Publisher: Red Kestrel Books
Published: 2019-11-21T00:00:00+00:00

X — INVESTIGATIONS AT BEECHCROFT

Pointer looked thoughtfully at the dead man’s face when it was uncovered for him to study it.

“He doesn’t look like a crook,” he said to Tomlinson. There was no one else present. “Looks too impatient, for one thing.”

“That’s what I thought had dished him, and us,” Tomlinson murmured. “He looks a dare-devil all right, doesn’t he?”

But Pointer was now examining the bullet wound. Then he passed his magnifying glass carefully around the mouth, and inside the mouth over the teeth. Whipping out a pair of pincers he picked a couple of threads from the strong teeth in front, and a few more from the back. He put them into an envelope. Tomlinson stood rigid. He knew what the other was doing.

“I’d like to get his clothes off,” were Pointer’s next words.

“Right!” Tomlinson, with a very eager face, helped to strip the dead man. They had only got his outer, gaudy, sheikh robe off, when the superintendent gave his first exclamation. Underneath, Major Moncrieff had on his usual clothes. His striped pique shirt and its crisp sleeves bore unmistakable marks of having been tightly tied halfway between shoulder and elbow.

“Tied with very thin cord, and for some time. Fish line, I should think,” Pointer said briefly.

“Or wire?” suggested Tomlinson.

But Pointer shook his head. “Take too long to cut. Now for the ankles. The wrists wouldn’t be touched, of course, for fear of leaving marks to catch your eye.”

When the body was stripped there was no doubt possible. The arms between shoulder and elbow, and the legs at the ankles, showed unmistakable signs of relentless tying.

“I think the line passed round the neck,” Pointer said, looking at a faint mark under the ears. A minute later his long brown fingers were feeling the man’s head over very carefully. He stopped for a moment at one place on the back of the head. Tomlinson felt it and nodded.

“Nice bump. Tiny place. Don’t wonder that Doctor Andrews didn’t find it. You don’t think of examining the head of a suicide for cracks.”

Pointer was looking round the room. It was a big, bare place, unfurnished save for cast-outs from the rest of the house, such as a broken kitchen table with a groggy leg, a cracked looking-glass, a chair whose back had a pleasing trick of coming off in your hand. But there were exceptions. A big handsomely carved chest fully seven feet long stood by the window. A wardrobe with a door that would not fasten was against the wall. It was stuffed full of clothes—property clothes. Another wardrobe was empty, and showed on examination curious double sides and sliding backs. A couple of boxes of the same ilk stood on one side; a screen which had really six folds instead of the three it showed; a hamper with a mysterious lid; and other such very expensive adjuncts of an entertainer’s possessions were here and there.

“Even when he was in the army he went in for this sort of thing,” Tomlinson explained.

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