"DEATH ON THE SET"

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 181, 1 August 1936, Page 17 (Supplement)

"DEATH ON THE SET"

% VICTOR MacCLURE.

CHAPTER Vll.—(Continued.) Detective Tranter Landed Burford his notebook and begged his chief to dispose of the valet straight away. The man had hecn waiting some time and wanted to get oil", having several gentlemen to attend to. Burford read Tranter's notes as far as they concerned the man-ser-vant, then asked Tranter to briii"Gunter in. Gunter was an elderly 1 ' man" unmistakably the "gentleman's man." "The fact that Mr. Morden had not returned did not disturb you?" asked Burford.

"No sir. I knew if he had night work at tlie studios that lie was liable to forget all about sleep. It has happened before, several times."

"Apart from having night work at the studios, was Mr. Morden given to stopping out all night?" "Not unless lie was away somewhere out of town." "Were there many occasions when you have arrived in the morning and found him looking as if he had had, shall we Bar—a thick night?" "Oh, no, sir. I have often come in and seen signs of him having been up all night working, but never as if he had been on a carouse, sir. Mr. Morden was as abstemious a gentleman as I have ever looked after," said Gunter. "Would you say that he was of cleanly habit?" "Very much so, sir. Scrupulous, I would say." Burford's scalp moved a little, and there was a pause during which he became deep in thought. "You may have heard that Mr. Morden was shot, and that a revolver was found besijle his body. Have you ever seen a revolver in his possession ?" Burford asked. "No, sir. But there might have been one in his desk, all the same."

"Have toii ever had reason to believe that Mr. Morden's life was threatened?" "No, sir. But then I knew very little of Mr. Morden's private affairs," the man replied. "When it is all said, sir, 1 liad very little contact with ]Vlr. Morden. I would give liim his breakfast, having tidied out his sitting room and drawn his hath. Then I would tidy his bedroom and see to his clothes and clear awav and wash the breakfast things. If he was busy at the studios and going off early in the mornings, I sometime* would not see him for days on end. He was not a very communicative gentleman, Mr. Morden. Evenings I would come in to lay out his evening clothes. I did that whether lie said'he wanted them or not. Then I would come in later and, if he had changed, put away (his day clothes. I did not mean any more to Mr. Morden than a piece of machinery, sir." "It has been said to me that in recent days Mr. Morden had become moody, rather morose. Did von notice anything like that?"

"I can't say I did, sir. Mr. Morden often was morose—usually when he was occupied with work." "Well, that will do, Gunter," said Burford. "I won't keep you any longer." "Thank you, sir. 'it is in order to leave you and your men in charge of the flat? I don't know now whom I am responsible to —" "That's perfectly all right Gunter." "Thank you, sir." Gunter bowed and took himself out of the room, and presently the entrance door of the flat rattled faintly. "Not much out of that fellow —eh, Tranter?" said Burford.

"No, sir—but I think he's genuine enough." "Yes, I think so. Well, let's sec -what you have." Tranter explained that the drawers of the desk had been locked, but that he and his fellow-officer, Morris, had found means to open them without damage to the locks. In one of the drawers, among bottles of different coloured inks and boxes of clips and such like articles, they had come upon a box of cartridge?, half full. They were revolver cartridges. "From the ingrained dust on the box," said Burford. "it looks as if these cartridges were fairly old stock. Fetch me over my case, will you, Tranter?" Tranter did so and Burford took out the paper-wrapped revolver. He unwrapped it, broke it carefully, and extracted one of the live cartridges from the chambers. He laid it on the desk beside one of tho cartridges taken from the box. They were exactly alike.

Burford pulled out the drawer which had contained the box. There was a space among the bottles and the various cartons quite big enough to have taken the revolver laid on its side The paper lining the bottom of the drawer was oilstained in places, and the marks coincided with those points in the revolver from which oil was most likely to bead.

"That's pretty all right, sir," said tlie enthusiastic Tranter. "That's a point fairly settled."

The smile Burford found for his junior was perhaps a trifle absent. "Yes, Tranter," he murmured. "It seems fairly clear that the revolver was Morden's. I could wish it were just as clear where the fact helps!" He sank into the chair that faced the desk, and gave hinis t elf up for a moment or two to cogitation. "All right!" he said at last. "Morden's gun it is. Now let's see what else you have, Tranter." "I don't know that it's much, sir," Tranter apologised, " —but I thought it would be safer to bring it to your.notiee. I just nabbed it from the wastepaper basket as Gunter was going to throw it out."

He spread out on the desk before Burford tlie quarter pieces of a torn blotting pad. At the sa,me time he handed over a small mirror apparently taken from Morden's bedroom. Burford set tlie mirror against the reversed writing on the pad. "You were very wise to nab this from the waste-paper basket, Tranter," he said after some examination by aid of the mirror. "It would seem that Mor< den has been drawing cheques for considerable amounts recently. Here's one for £2.10 and another for £300 —and here are another couple of noughts on tlie edge of the centre smudging. I consider this important, Tranter. You have done well. What else have you?" Tranter tried hard to appear unmoved by file praise, but his manner, as he brought his pocket-book out, said quite plainly: "You think that good, do you? Let's see what you think of what I m going to show you 1" He brought from tlie pocket-book a folded half-sheet o* notepaper, and spread it out on the desk in front of Burford. _ . i "There's that," he said, with artificial calm. Burford conned the scrap, and took no pains to hide his lively interest. "Where did you get this, Tranter? b/j asked.

-the half-sheet had been torn from a quarto sheet of good-class notepapcr. slate blue and faintly scented. Typed across its greater width ran the following legend:

I have waited long enough. Another forty-eight hours and I begin to talk— you know where.

Later that night Burford, having fed. walked into the fingerprint bureau at Ae\\- Scotland Yard. Beyond his expectation, for it was late, he found the oiheer named Swan still at work. Have you got that set classified for me?" Burford asked.

"Yes. It is ready, Archie. Here's the formula," said the other, handing over a sheet of paper covered with what looked like an odd jumble of letters and figures. '"It's on the American plan. Cable that, and follow it up with these photos of the prints themselves," handing over photographic proofs, "and you may get what you want." "111 have it cabled at once, and send the prints ofT first mail,' 'said Burford. "I'm not packing up if there's anything you want, Archie." "It's a darned imposition—but if you can do a thing for me it may be a big jump forward," said Burford. He brought out an envelope and took from it the half-sheet of slate-blue note paper found by Tranter in Morden's desk. "I'll be most grateful, Dick, if you'll see what you can bring up on that before you go." Swan pickcd up the paper in broadended tweezers, and held it under a light. "Yes," he said. "That's a good surface, and there's stuff on it. I'll have a go at it, Archie." v "Right. I'll be in my room, Dick. Thanks, old lad!" Burford went off to his own small office in another part of the building. He doffed his hat and coat and sat in to his desk with liis notes in front of him. For a moment or two he passed from page to page, considering one point with another.

"It had slipped behind a stack of typewriting paper in the top right-hand drawer, sir.' '

"C.L.—G. L.i" he said through his teeth. "Constance Lyon—eh? What is it she is hiding? What is her maid hiding —and why did Hipkin take so long in getting out to Hendon? What are Frayle and Vandyke hiding?" His cogitation was interrupted by the entrance of Swan. "What's the result?"

The finger-print expert laid the halfsheet of notepaper containing tlie threat in front of Burford. It now showed several prints made clear by the use of some black substance.

"That—that —and that!" said Swan with pointed pencil. "These are the prints of the man who's dead. That's another of his. But this —this—and this—and that one in the corner —they belong to somebody else." "Not a woman-'?" "Might be. They're a trifle oil the big side. More probably a man's. But I'll tell you this, Archie," said Swan. "They're uncommonly like some of the fragmentary prints that came up on that stuff Crowther brought in." "Oh, yes!" said Burford, and a faraway look came into his eyes. "Yes!" CHAPTER VIII.

Time had made a long jump into another day when Archie Burford sought his bed. His watcli, as ho laid it on his bedside table showed the hour to be half-past two. On the superintendent's desk in Scotland Yard lay a pile of notes in Burford's neat handwriting, ready for Greenlea's perusal in the morning, but Burford himself had jottings no less comprehensive to read over before he actually got between the sheets. It was his habit to ensure, that no stray fragment of evidence in a case had been left unrecorded to spring up in memory and disturb his approach to sleep. What doubts assailed him he committed to writing, ready to be taken up again in the morning. His notebook was his conscience. He refused to let "to-mor-row's worries slop back into to-day." With his hair still da»ip from the tepid bath which was his invariable preliminary to going to bed, he put his head on the pillow. In a very few minutes he was fast asleep. 'When the housekeeper came in at half-past seven with a cup of China tea, Burford had already been at his desk for a quarter of an hour in his dressing gown. This snatch at an extra fifteen minutes was no official occasion. He had taken it to write to Mrs. Burford—that Nadine who had figured so prominently in his first great "triumph, now in the country on a recital tour. Quarter to nine saw him walking with casual, yet rapid stride from the Mall past Horse Guards' Parade. With his trim umbrella, his enviably-cut dark overcoat, beautifully made black felt hat, ore/ trousers and neat shoes, he might have passed (but for his earliness) for a senior member of the' Foreign Office permanent staff. He ran up the ste|>s into Downing Street, lifted his umbrella to his hat in answer to a salute from a

( or of Ultimatum,' "The Secret Fool,;' « Gambletown," "Death Behind the Door," etc., etc.)

stained and dusty. What is more, it smelled unmistakably of cheap tobacco and such scents as permeate close rooms where liquor is sopped about by herded humanity.

constable'moodily contemplating No. 10, and again to a large man in plain C'Otlies who rapped his bowler -from the big gates of the Foreign Office, then crossed Whitehall. It still lacked a minute or two of nine when he sat in to his desk, in his own room at Scotland Yard, and fell to examination of the papers disposed on his blotter. . In the twenty-odd hours that had passed since his assignment to the case. Burford's investigations had become extraordinarily widespread. Over-night a long night letter embodying the finger--print formula of the murdered man and a succinct description of his physical characteristics had gone to a friend of Burford's in the New York police, with a request that the matter of the letter should bo repeated in various directions throughout the States. Another letter had gone to the Sussex police asking for all available information regarding the family named Writtle which had been living in the house called Rest Harrow, at West Hoathly, for a number of years up to about 1029. The letter also asked for information regarding Nancy Hipkin, who had been in service with the Writtles, but who had left that service in 1927 to be married, and if ' anything was known of her husband, named Cardross. The officers of the C.T.D., "S" Division, were engaged in an attempt to discover the movements of any person from Hendon railway station towards the Titan studios, or about the latter, between half-past six and eight o'clock on the morning of the murder, or indeed for any information whatever likely to throw light on the crime. Then a number of trusty officers, including. Sergeant Crowtlier, had been scouring the West End, the allnight cafes and the shady night clubs, to see if there was any truth in the rumours of Morden's liking for evil courses. That he should be at need to make investigation in this last regard was a feature of his case which puzzled Burford a great deal. There was, indeed, evidence in plenty that Morden had been unscrupulous in finding satisfaction for

Here, then, was a consideration in his already much-ramified case that Burford dared not neglect. Its implications, its, possibilities, were too extensive. It might seem that the murder had been done by one of the five individuals left with Morden in the dressing rooms . between six-thirty and seven-twenty-five (for Hipkin, of course, was not exempt from suspicion), but, having regard to the fact of the missing key, it could also seem that the crime had been committed by some associate of Morden's in the seamy streak of his life. Burford's belief /that the dead man had tasted prison fell little short of certainty. The possibility put forward by Joe Crowther- —that Morden had taken Rosetibaum's kev to give it to someone with whom he was "up to some game," and with whom he had arranged a meeting—was not so far-fetched. The idea: savoured, perhaps, of the "theory" Burford detested, but it was not an idea snatched out of the empty air. It was Xfonstrueted on evidence.

If, however, the explanation of the murder rooted back to Morden's reeky proclivities, it was hard to divine why the five people otherwise implicated should have nothing to hide. Burford's experience and study of murder cases gave him 110 reason for absolving any one of the five from murder, but that any one of them had contact with the squalid side of Morden was unbelievable. Or it would have been unbelievable except for that typed threat initialled "C.L."

The sum of Burford's meditation was that the essential clue was still to seek. It might transpire from any one of the several investigations he had instigated. Meantime —meantime, there ■were new paths to explore. He touched his desk bell. "Joe," said Burford, when Crowtlier came in response to the messenger's summons, "Take this before we get to your Soho report. I want you to go along to Somerset House and look up the register of marriages, year 1927, under 'C.' See if you can find a record of the marriage of a man named Cardross to Nancy Hipkin of West Hoathly. Bring me full particulars."

"Full p'tie'lars — Cardross — Nancy Hipkin—West Hoathy—one-nine-two-seven," Crowther repeated, entering the points in his notebook, "yes?"

a sex appetite that passed normalilty, but there were other evidences which denied such viciousness in the man as would urge him to seek sordid, and not to say dangerous, gratifications with women of debased type. To be blunt on this matter, there was no need for Morden to seek such gratifications. He had been in receipt of a very considerable income. His position afforded him the power to grant favours to a big number of women, and there was no need for him to grant these favours exclusively to the scrupulous among them. In the sordid pursuits, moreover, to which rumour gave Morden a leaning, there were inevitable features of squalor at which a man of any fastidiousness would revolt. And Burford hardly needed tha evidence of Vandyck and the valet to confirm hi« idea "of Morden's fastidiousness. A look at the man's belongings indicated, nothing less.

Yet in this regard Burford, for more reasons than one, was led to conclude he had found in the dead man a duality of character akin to that of Jekyll and Hyde. Though he made no parade of iti Burford's knowledge of pathology and medical jurisprudence was considerable. The bodv which lay in the mortuary at Hendon'was, he saw, not that of an ascetic. There were indications that the man had seen hard times, for the marks of lean living are almost irradicable in the human frame, but there were proofs too, of self-indulgence. There was not in the skin the scrupulous cleanliness, either, that absolute fastidiousness would 'ensue. The hands were clean, but not quite clean enough. The muscular structure was spare, but there was a flaccid quality in the covering tissues which did not accord with a disciplined attitude to drink and food. There was, moreover, some indescribable quality^in the dead man whicli murmured "lag to Burfoid, and which , had given him purposes beyond mere precautionary routine 111 requiring prints of the greying fingertips. It was not idly that Burford, as may be remembered, smellec? the grey silk shirt discarded by Morden in the dressing closet of his room. Not long before he had examined the clothes taken from the body in the mortuaiy. The blue lounge suit had been made by the first-class tailor whose label appeared on all Morden's clothes, and the same tailor had cut the shirt and collar. Shoes, socks, the underclothing, ami all the accessories of raiment were of an equally high-class quality. There was," however, a sort of fustiness about the underclothing, as if it had not been aired for some time or as if it had been worn for a stretch of hours unbioken by sleep. It was this fact more than any other which inclined Burford to credit the rumours of Morden's nocturnal activities. And the blue suit, though made, according to the tabs, for Morden at no very distant date, was rather

"That's all, Joe," said Burford. "Taki a seat and let's see what you have on Morden's Soho activities." "Well, there's ground enough fo 1 believin' he did muck round Soho —an not by any means the respectable-est o the dives. 1 thought," said Joe, " —1 thought I reckonized that chap's face smashed though it was by the out com in' bullet. I've seen 'ini, Archie but I wasn't goin' to say so right off But there's more than one knew 'im by name. There's a list there of the per sons that's ready to identify 'im." "So I see, Joe. It may come to tha yet. Depends on developments" Bur ford returned. "What about tlu« woman, de Lerin?" (To be continued Saturday next.)