Foreign Office Case

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23181, 29 October 1938, Page 13 (Supplement)

Foreign Office Case

Derrick dean, the great i detective, slumped idly in an j easy chair before a roaring j fire. His meditations were rudely : shattered by the peal of the doorbell, rung with a touch which Dean deductively knew betokened a caller in his early fifties, blue-eyed, ruddyconiplexioned and flat of foot. Dean barely h«iil time to dash ft bucket of water on the fire, switch off the . ights, and duck behind a rare old high-boy before his man Spratt was feeling his way across the room. Whipping on a pair of surgical gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints, Spratt flung wide the door and fell flat on his face on the Oriental rug. in the doorwav was silhouetted the portly j'orm of that lovable old duller. Detective Inspector Mac Sullivan of Scotland Yard. Suddenly a Malay kris swished past his ear from behind and buried it'< point in a Gainshorough ol Sir Gerald Huntley. Bart. Kanid lootsteps of a tall, swarthy man with hook nose could he heard retreating down the hall. "C'onie in, old man," called Dean nonchalantly, as he switched on the lights, the fire, and extracted the kr& from the stomach of Sir Gerald. , .. "Whew! That was a close call,. Dean," protested thy Inspector, as he mopped his brow with one of Dean s Gohcli.ii tapestries and experimentally lingered the empty space where his leit ear lobe had previously been. "Very serious business, Dean, lie went'on, absently trimming his moustache with a paii of nail clippers. "Foreign Office official murdered in his own home." "Aha! An K.O. case, eh J said Dean, fencing for an opening. bo s the victim ' ■ ~ "Lord I'othergill Cluselingbnme. confided Mac Sullivan, giving the correct pronunciation, Lord I'ogill Chisel em. "Bullet's be off, Dean, there s not a moment to lose." As the Inspector .moved for the door. Dean whipped out his service automatic and-emptied 28 shots through the ke\hole^.,,Opening the door with a jerk, ho disclosed a dead pigeon lying quietly on the threshold, and once more the ominous, swarthy, hook-nosed footr echoed down the hallway. Arrived at the home of Lord Chisel* inglialiVe,'''they passed rapidly through the police cordon which had been thrown around the house for five miles in every direction.

I "Kow about doors and windows? demanded Dean as they entered the peer's handsomely furnished suite and | acknowledged the-salutes of the knecl- > ing police force whom he graciously j bid rise. | "Kvery window steel-barred—both j doors welded shut." reported MacSulli- | vanDean viewed the corpus delicti and | caught his breath, hardened though he j was by the sights at the Louvre and ! other picture pillories. Old Lord Oliisj elinghanie was 'ying in a bathtub full > of steaming water, fully dressed, with •j an Oriental dagger protruding at least j three feet from his chest; his skull i had been crushed lik.' an egg by some | heavy, blunt, grey-green instrument i (made in Germany). Dropping to his j knees. Dean ran his nose rapidly over i the tiled floor. "Yes, by jove, that I must be it," be growled. j "What must be what?" asked one of i the police underlines with more tcmcr- | ity than judgment. Dean, however, was I not. ensilv an«*ered and he clanned the

young constable good-humouredly on the back of the neck with one of the plumbing fixtures. The great detective, now thoroughly on the scent, dashed precipitously out the door and down the stairs. Arrived on the pavement, he called for volunteers and posted three hundred of tinbest in the door of a barber's shop. Shaking hands all round and with a good word for eaeli, lie strode courageously into the tensorial emporium. Three barbers spraug to their chairs .'■lid counted off by fours. Dean sal. down and rcqii ->ted a shave. The barber chosen caught up the criminologist's hand and vigorously stropped the razor on his arm. Dean forthwith blew four tremendous b!;ist< on a I' reneh horn lie had secreted under his vestAlter terrific struggle with a regiment of Dragoons that answered Dean's call, the wretched dip-artist was hastened off to the Old Bailey (pending construction of the all-modern, or "New," Bailey). —KOBK-HT C. WOODS, in The -Indue, Xcvn York.