The Clifford Affair by A. E. Fielding

Author:A. E. Fielding
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781839740633
Publisher: Red Kestrel Books
Published: 2019-11-21T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER IX

Pointer was at breakfast at eight o’clock when he received a letter rushed up to him by a motor cyclist from Scotland Yard, where it had just been delivered. It had been posted the previous evening at Charing Cross. It was signed A. Newman, and ran:

“To Detective Chief Inspector Pointer.

“Dear Sir,—I know that you have had your suspicions of me, and that it is only a question of days before the trap closes if I stay at Thornbush. I prefer to slip away while I can. The headless body found in Fourteen Heath Mansions, and identified—publicly, at any rate—by the police as Etcheverrey, a Basque anarchist, is Mr. Julian Clifford’s. I killed him last night for reasons which concern no one but myself. I took the flat for a month, under the name of Tourcoin, and induced Mr. Clifford to come there late last night. The rest you know. Haslar guessed what had happened when he read the description of his coat and ring, borrowed by me; as well as from some things that I let slip. I shot him to prevent his going to the police. I did not intend to hurt him severely. My intention was to inflict a slight wound to disable him until I could make my arrangements.

“Faithfully yours,

“A. Newman.”

Pointer had barely finished this when his telephone buzzed. It was one of the men whom he had left at Arnold Haslar’s house. He was speaking from a nearby telephone. He read out to the Chief Inspector the letters which he had just taken from the postman. None interested Pointer except one from Newman. Practically a replica of his own letter, informing “Dear Miss Haslar” of the same terrible facts and ending up “yours very truly.”

The letters were duly refastened and delivered.

Newman evidently believed that he had got clear of the police, or this letter would not have been written—not yet. So Pointer read the situation. But had Newman really escaped? Time alone would tell. As for the telephone message to the taxis, no information was brought in overnight that fitted Newman, nor was his portrait identified by any of the men.

Pointer himself drove at once to Thornbush and had a short talk with Sir Edward, who had spent what remained of the night there. Clifford read Newman’s letter with a puckered brow.

“It fits in with our idea of last night, and with that deciphered bit of burnt paper. ‘I know the danger,’ Julian wrote. But that was evidently just what my brother did not know. Of course the last word on that fragment is either knife or life. Certainly not wife. I see no necessity of even suggesting that third reading.”

Pointer agreed that until they knew more, either of the two words might be substituted.

There was a silence.

“This confession of—we will continue to call him Newman—is an extraordinary document. Is it a genuine confession, do you think?”

“Very difficult to say, Sir Edward.”

Mrs. Clifford came into the room at that. She looked very composed. Yet Pointer thought that she had not slept well.

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