Among Those Absent by Manning Coles

Author:Manning Coles
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, mystery
Publisher: Distributed Proofreaders Canada
Published: 1952-05-15T05:00:00+00:00

XII

THE FIDDLER DISAPPEARS

Hambledon gave Bagshott and the Superintendent a detailed account of everything that happened at five Verbena Street from the time they first arrived there until the moment when the body of Arnott rolled out of the wardrobe.

“Did you know Arnott personally?” asked Bagshott.

“No, but the man who was with me knew him. Arnott was mixed up in the jewel robbery at the Capitol.”

“We’ll go into that later,” said Bagshott. “One crime at a time—if it is a crime. We don’t know that Arnott was murdered, he may just have died.”

“People do,” agreed Hambledon. “But why push him in the wardrobe? One point is quite clear, the Bates pair knew all about it. For one thing, his shaving-tackle, hair brushes and so forth were in there with him, they must have been put in when she cleared up the room. Unless of course he felt his last moment approaching, packed all his things neatly away in the wardrobe, climbed in on top of them and quietly passed away.”

“But,” said the Superintendent, “with a corpse in the wardrobe why the heck did they put you and your friend in that room?”

“That’s the principal reason why it may be murder,” said Tommy. “I think this. If we hadn’t found him, and if the other three men hadn’t turned up, I think Mrs. Bates would have found the corpse herself in the morning, let out a series of piercing screams and sent for the police. Hawkley and friend might have found it difficult to clear themselves. Again, when those three men came in, their leader asked for Arnott because, he said, Bates had told him Arnott was there. Arnott was one of their gang and though I don’t think they were very pleased with him at the moment—that’s a bit of the Capitol story—they would have been even less pleased with Bates for bumping off one of their pals. So we were to take the can back with them, too.”

“But somebody removed the body,” said Bagshott.

“Yes. I think Bates did, but of course it may have been someone else altogether. I mean, such odd things people do collect, don’t they? If Bates could remove the body before the gang found it, so much the better. If not, they didn’t kill him, we did. Quick thinkers, these Bates.”

“I understood,” said the Superintendent, “that the body was removed from the wardrobe without your knowledge although you were in the room the whole time.”

“Yes,” said Hambledon, “but from what I’ve heard about that house the problem is not so insoluble as you’d think. Certain structural alterations have been made which enable a man of retiring disposition to step into his wardrobe, shut the door after him and walk quietly out of the corresponding wardrobe in the room next door. There are also, I’m told, means of getting out on the roof which I didn’t have time to investigate. Taken in conjunction with the fact that the place is really three adjoining houses complete with their

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.