Read Online Designs on Life by Elizabeth Ferrars - Free Book Online

know, I know!” He jerked himself forward to the edge of the chair. “You’re going to say that it’s always at six in the evening that Mr. Wragge goes to work.”
    She was nodding when they heard feet tramping on the pavement outside, and a rapping on the front door that echoed through the house.
    From the time when Superintendent Cust appeared, accompanied by a sergeant, nothing in the house seemed quite so sinister. There was still the darkness, the drumming water, the tomb-like smell of wet plaster, the puddles on the floor. Upstairs in a cupboard there was still the body of a man with his head battered in. But Superintendent Cust had a square face with brown, rubbery skin. He had a square, heavy body and square-tipped, heavy hands. And he had a way of pulling his features together in a bunch with one hand and speaking through the fingers in a voice so smothered by them that it sounded as if he were suffering from a dreadful cold. His presence brought reassurance.
    “Good heavens,” he said, “why didn’t you tell us we needed umbrellas?”
    “It’s upstairs, Superintendent,” Mr. Shew said, “in an upstairs cupboard.”
    “Of course it’s upstairs. What is it, a burst tank?”
    “I mean, the corpse is upstairs—the dead man.”
    “Oh yes, that. Why don’t you turn the main tap off?”
    “I’ve done so. This water is what had already collected in the walls and ceilings. There was no one at home in either of the top floor flats when the pipe, or the tank, or whatever it is burst, so the upper floors had time to become completely flooded before Mrs. Haddow and I were aware of anything amiss.”
    “Never seen anything like it,” Mr. Cust said. He pulled nose, cheeks and chin together into a handful and looked round at the sergeant. “Maybe you could do something about it, Bill,” he suggested.
    Margaret remarked, “When the plumber comes, I suppose he’ll think it’s his job to investigate the murder.”
    Mr. Cust’s eyes came round to her. “You the lady who found the body?”
    “We both found the body,” Mr. Shew said quickly. “It was Mrs. Haddow who slipped in the blood, thus drawing our attention to the fact that there was a body there.”
    A crash reverberated in the darkness.
    “Some more of my ceiling coming down,” Margaret said.
    “All right,” Mr. Cust said. “Well, let’s go along up and look at him.”
    On the way up the stairs he leant towards Margaret and whispered, “Who is the old boy?”
    “He’s Councillor Shew,” she answered, “Chairman of the Baths and Cemeteries Committee.”
    He gave a muffled whistle.
    He gave another whistle when he saw the body.
    “That’s dead, that is,” he said, and after a minute or two, during which his massive hindquarters had concealed most of the cupboard, he added, “Not very long either. Not more than half an hour or so, I should guess.”
    Mrs. Shew began, “Mrs. Haddow and I have deduced …”
    But the superintendent went straight on, “Who lives in this flat up here?”
    “A man called Boyle,” Mr. Shew said. “I believe he deals in electrical apparatus of some sort.”
    “And down there?”
    “A man called Wragge. He’s a sub-editor on the Gazette.”
    “Oh, works at night, I suppose.”
    “Yes, he goes out every evening about six o’clock.”
    “Out now?”
    “Yes.”
    Mr. Cust went up the stairs to Boyle’s flat. He tried all the doors. Finding them locked, he came down to the first floor, tried the handle of the door nearest to him, found that it would open and went in. Margaret and Mr. Shew could hear him moving about inside and caught an occasional glimpse of his light as he flashed it from side to side.
    After a moment he called to them, “You said he was out.”
    “Yes,” Margaret said.
    “Well, come and have a look here.” Mr. Cust’s voice came from the bedroom.
    As they approached he flashed his torch at the bed. It picked out the haggard face and limp black hair of the man who was lying