Read Online Thou Shell of Death by Nicholas Blake - Free Book Online Page A

and other accessories. Taviston was a good fifteen miles distant, and Nigel spent the intervening time putting through a trunk call to his uncle in London. Sir John Strangeways’ reception of the news was typical of the man.
    ‘Shot …? Suicide to all appearances …? You don’t think so …? Well, go to it … I’ll send Tommy Blount down if they call in the Yard … No, don’t blame yourself, boy; I know you did your best. He didn’t give us a chance … Going to be a rumpus about this, though. I’ll have to see what we can do about nobbling the Press … So long. Let me know if you want anything … Oh, right. Who? Cyril Knott-Sloman, Lucilla Thrale, Edward and Georgia Cavendish, Philip Starling. Right, I’ll have ’em looked up … So long. Be good to yourself.’
    Ten minutes later the police car arrived. Superintendent Bleakley was a man of middle height. His straight back and waxed moustache suggested military service; a brick-red face, the faint Somerset burr in his voice, and something unwieldy in his gait, pointed to the blood of many yeomen ancestors in his veins. The martinet quality of his training and the deep inherited
laissezfaire
of the countryman were always at odds within him. He was followed out of the car by a sergeant, a constable and the doctor. Nigel met them.
    ‘My name is Strangeways. My uncle’s Assistant Commissioner. I’ve done a certain amount of work as a private inquiry agent, and I was staying down here with O’Brien in that capacity. I’ll give you details later. We found O’Brien at nine forty-five in that hut over there: he had been shot. Nothing has been touched. There was this single trail of footprints leading to the hut. No others.’
    ‘What’s all this, then?’ asked Bleakley, pointing to the tracks that had been made by the other guests. ‘Seems to have been a proper stampede.’
    ‘There are several other visitors. They
would
come out here. I kept them off the important prints,’ said Nigel mendaciously.
    They entered the hut. Bleakley looked at Arthur suspiciously, Arthur at Bleakley belligerently. The body was photographed from several angles. Then the doctor got to work on it. He was a taciturn man, but agreeably unprofessional both in his clothes and his manner. After a bit, straightening up on his knees, he said:
    ‘Looks like a clear case of suicide. See the powder burning here? Shot fired into the heart from a few inches range. Here’s the bullet. You’ll find it checks up with that revolver, Bleakley, or I shall be very surprised. Only point against suicide is that he isn’t holding the revolver. Suicides generally grip on the weapon they’ve used—cadaveric spasms, it’s called. Still, it’s not invariable. There are no other injuries except these bruises on the right wrist. He would be killed instantaneously.’ The doctor looked at his wristwatch. ‘M’m. I should say death took place between ten last night and three this morning. The post-mortem may narrow it down. The ambulance will be along here directly, I suppose.’
    ‘These bruises, doctor, how do you account for them?’ said Nigel, bending over the body and looking at the two faint purple marks on the underside of the wrist.
    ‘Hit himself against the edge of this table falling, I should think.’
    Bleakley was staring in a ruminative way at O’Brien’s feet. ‘Surely he didn’t walk out here in carpet slippers,’ he said, and began rummaging around the hut. In a minute he discovered, behind one of the armchairs by the left-hand wall, a pair of patent-leather evening shoes. ‘These belong to the deceased?’ he enquired sharply of Arthur Bellamy.
    ‘The Colonel’s shoes those are,’ said Arthur dully, looking inside them.
    ‘The Colonel’s? What Colonel?’
    ‘He means O’Brien,’ said Nigel.
    ‘Well, we’d best see if they fit those footprints outside before the sun melts ’em away altogether.’
    Bleakley took the shoes up gingerly, using his handkerchief. Nigel