Towards Zero (Superintendent Battle 5)

He spoke into the telephone: “Get me the Yard.”

“You think it’s going to be an important case, sir?” asked Battle.

Mitchell said gravely:

“It’s going to be a case where we don’t want the possibility of making a mistake. We want to be absolutely sure of our man—or woman, of course.”

Battle nodded. He understood quite well that there was something behind the words.

“Thinks he knows who did it,” he said to himself. “And doesn’t relish the prospect. Somebody well-known and popular or I’ll eat my boots!”

III

Battle and Leach stood in the doorway of the well-furnished handsome bedroom. On the floor in front of them a police officer was carefully testing for fingerprints the handle of a golf club—a heavy niblick. The head of the club was bloodstained and had one or two white hairs sticking to it.

By the bed, Dr. Lazenby, who was police surgeon for the district, was bending over the body of Lady Tressilian.

He straightened up with a sigh.

“Perfectly straightforward. She was hit from in front with terrific force. First blow smashed in the bone and killed her, but the murderer struck again to make sure. I won’t give you fancy terms—just the plain horse sense of it.”

“How long has she been dead?” asked Leach.

“I’d put it between ten o’clock and midnight.”

“You can’t go nearer than that?”

“I’d rather not. All sorts of factors to take into account. We don’t hang people on rigor mortis nowadays. Not earlier than ten, not later than midnight.”

“And she was hit with this niblick?”

The doctor glanced over at it.

“Presumably. Luck, though, that the murderer left it behind. I couldn’t have deduced a niblick from the wound. As it happens the sharp edge of the club didn’t touch the head—it was the angled back of the club that must have hit her.”

“Wouldn’t that have been rather difficult to do?” asked Leach.

“If it had been done on purpose, yes,” agreed the doctor. “I can only suppose, that by a rather odd chance, it just happened that way.”

Leach was raising his hands, instinctively trying to reconstruct the blow.

“Awkward,” he commented.

“Yes,” said the doctor thoughtfully. “The whole thing was awkward. She was struck, you see, on the right temple—but whoever did it must have stood on the right-hand side of the bed—facing the head of the bed—there’s no room on the left, the angle from the wall is too small.”

Leach pricked up his ears.

“Left-handed?” he queried.

“You won’t get me to commit myself on that point,” said Lazenby. “Far too many snags. I’ll say, if you like, that the easiest explanation is that the murderer was left-handed—but there are other ways of accounting for it. Suppose, for instance, the old lady had turned her head slightly to the left just as the man hit. Or he may have previously moved the bed out, stood on the left of it and afterwards moved the bed back.”

“Not very likely—that last.”

“Perhaps not, but it might have happened. I’ve had some experience in these things, and I can tell you, my boy, deducing that a murderous blow was struck left-handed is full of pitfalls.”

Detective Sergeant Jones, from the floor, remarked, “This golf club is the ordinary right-handed kind.”

Leach nodded. “Still, it mayn’t have belonged to the man who used it. It was a man, I suppose, doctor?”

“Not necessarily. If the weapon was that heavy niblick a woman could have landed a terrible swipe with it.”

Superintendent Battle said in his quiet voice:

“But you couldn’t swear that that was the weapon, could you, doctor?”

Lazenby gave him a quick interested glance.

“No. I can only swear that it might have been the weapon, and that presumably it was the weapon. I’ll analyse the blood on it, make sure that it’s the same blood group—also the hairs.”

“Yes,” said Battle approvingly. “It’s always as well to be thorough.”

Lazenby asked curiously:

“Got any doubts about that golf club yourself, Superintendent?”

Battle shook his head.

“Oh no, no. I’m a simple man. Like to believe the things I see with my eyes. She was hit with something heavy—that’s heavy. It has blood and hair on it, therefore presumably her blood and hair. Ergo—that was the weapon used.”

Leach asked: “Was she awake or asleep when she was hit?”

“In my opinion, awake. There’s astonishment on her face. I’d say—this is just a private personal opinion—that she didn’t expect what was going to happen. There’s no sign of any attempt to fight—and no horror or fear. I’d say offhand that either she had just woken up from sleep and was hazy and didn’t take things in—or else she recognized her assailant as someone who could not possibly wish to harm her.”

“The bedside lamp was on and nothing else,” said Leach thoughtfully.

“Yes, that cuts either way. She may have turned it on when she was suddenly woken up by someone entering her room. Or it may have been on already.”

Detective Sergeant Jones rose to his feet. He was smiling appreciatively.

“Lovely set of prints on that club,” he said. “Clear as anything!”

Leach gave a deep sigh.

“That ought to simplify things.”

“Obliging chap,” said Dr. Lazenby. “Left the weapon—left his fingerprints on it—wonder he didn’t leave his visiting card!”

“It might be,” said Superintendent Battle, “that he just lost his head. Some do.”

The doctor nodded.

“True enough. Well, I must go and look after my other patient.”

“What patient?” Battle sounded suddenly interested.

“I was sent for by the butler before this was discovered. Lady Tressilian’s maid was found in a coma this morning.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Heavily doped with one of the barbiturates. She’s pretty bad, but she’ll pull round.”

“The maid?” said Battle. His rather oxlike eyes went heavily to the big bell pull, the tassel of which rested on the pillow near the dead woman’s hand.

Lazenby nodded.

“Exactly. That’s the first thing Lady Tressilian would have done if she’d cause to feel alarm—pull that bell and summon the maid. Well, she could have pulled it till all was blue. The maid wouldn’t have heard.”

“That was taken care of, was it?” said Battle. “You’re sure of that? She wasn’t in the habit of taking sleeping draughts?”

“I’m positive she wasn’t. There’s no sign of such a thing in her room. And I’ve found out how it was given to her. Senna pods. She drank a brew of senna pods every night. The stuff was in that.”

Superintendent Battle scratched his chin.

“H’m,” he said. “Somebody knew all about this house. You know, doctor, this is a very odd sort of murder.”

“Well,” said Lazenby, “that’s your business.”

“He’s a good man, our doctor,” said Leach when Lazenby had left the room

.

The two men were alone now. The photographs had been taken, and measurements recorded. The two police officers knew every fact that was to be known about the room where the crime had been committed.

Battle nodded in answer to his nephew’s remark. He seemed to be puzzling over something.

“Do you think anyone could have handled that club—with gloves on, say—after those fingerprints were made?”

Leach shook his head.

“I don’t and no more do you. You couldn’t grasp that club—not use it, I mean, without smearing those prints. They weren’t smeared. They were as clear as clear. You saw for yourself.”

Battle agreed.

“And now we ask very nicely and politely if every body will allow us to take their fingerprints—no compulsion, of course. And everyone will say yes—and then one of two things will happen. Either none of these fingerprints will agree, or else—”

“Or else we’ll have got our man?”

“I suppose so. Or our woman, perhaps.”

Leach shook his head.

“No, not a woman. Those prints on the club were a man’s. Too big for a woman’s. Besides, this isn’t a woman’s crime.”

“No.” agreed Battle. “Quite a man’s crime. Brutal, masculine, rather athletic and slightly stupid. Know anybody in the house like that?”

“I don’t know anyone in the house yet. They’re all together in the dining room.”

Battle moved towards the door.

“We’ll go and have a look at them.” He glanced over his shoulder at the bed, shook his head and remarked:

“I don’t like that bell pull.”

“What about it?”

“It doesn’t fit.”

He added as he opened the door: