Read Online Fen Country by Edmund Crispin - Free Book Online Page B

positive and irrefragable), a fifty-year-old woman, a Mrs. Whittington, had been murdered in the kitchen of her home on the outskirts of the town.
    The weapon—a heavy iron poker, with which Mrs. Whittington had been struck violently on the back of the head—was found, wiped clean of fingerprints, near by. The back door was open, and it was evident that the murder had followed, or been followed by, a certain amount of pilfering.
    Mrs. Whittington’s husband, Leslie Whittington, a man younger and a good deal better-looking than his wife, held the post of chief engineer in the machine-tool manufacturing firm of Heathers and Bardgett, whose factory was some ten minutes’ walk from the Whittington home.
    On the morning in question Whittington had been, as usual on weekdays, in his office at the factory. And the only respect in which, from his point of view, this particular morning had differed from any other was that he had been visited by a reporter, a girl, who worked for the most important of the Munsingham local newspapers. This girl, by name Sheila Pratt, was doing a series on the managers and technicians of Munsingham industry, and Whittington, an important man in his line, represented her current assignment.
    She had arrived at Whinington’s office shortly before 10:30 and had left again three-quarters of an hour later. During this period Whittington’s secretary had, on Whittington’s own instructions, told callers, and people who telephoned, that Whittington was out, thereby ensuring that the interview remained undisturbed.
    Moreover, there was a fire-escape running down past Whittington’s office window to a little-frequented yard.
    As a matter of course, Pollitt had set in train the routine of investigating whether some previous association could have existed between Whittington and Sheila Pratt. Their own assertion was that until the interview they had been complete strangers to one another; but Mrs. Whittington, Pollitt had learned, was not the divorcing sort—and the pilfering could easily have been a blind.
    Before any results could be obtained from this investigation, however, there had occurred that development which had resulted in the chief constable’s ordering the file on the case to be closed. Two days after the murder, a notorious young thug called Miller was run over and killed by a lorry on the by-pass road, and in his pocket were found several small pieces of jewelry looted from Mrs. Whittington’s bedroom at the time of her death.
    “There were witnesses, too,” said Pollitt, “who’d seen Miller hanging about near the Whittington house on the morning Mrs. W was done in. So it was reasonable enough to put the blame on him, and just leave it at that. Of course, Miller could quite well have come along and pinched the stuff after the murder was committed, but the CC thought that in the absence of any evidence against the husband that was stretching it a bit far, and one sees his point of view.”
    “One does,’ Humbleby agreed. “And I must admit, Charlie, that at the moment I still don’t quite see yours.”
    “I know, I know,” said Pollitt, disgruntled. “But I still maintain that those two—Whittington and the Pratt girl—had their story far too pat. I took them both through it several times—separately, and with all sorts of camouflage stuff about unimportant detail—and neither of them ever put a foot wrong. Look.” He thrust a sheaf of typescript at Humbleby. “Here are their various statements. You have a look at them.”
    “M’m,” said Humbleby, nearly an hour later. “Yes… Look, Charlie, the girl’s statements all contain stuff about the camera she brought with her to the interview. ‘Tripod… three seconds’ exposure’—all that. Do you happen to have copies of the pictures she took?”
    “She only kept one,” said Pollitt. “But I’ve got a blow-up print of that, all right.” He produced it and handed it across. “It’s a good picture, isn’t