Red Snow at Darjeeling, page 16
Woodring grinned appreciatively. “You’ve done a good job, anyhow, Clemenceau,” he said, “and you ought to get a handsome reward from Mr. Blenn. I’m sure Miss Ingram will suggest it to him. I would myself, but I’m afraid I won’t be in his good graces after what happened to-night. You see, I—”
Woodring stopped, aware from Ruth Ingram’s expression that some one had come up behind him. He turned to face Inspector Prike.
Prike was standing solemnly with his hat in his hand. He said: “Miss Ingram, I have bad news.”
Ruth smiled—a little wistfully, a little sceptically. She said: “I suppose it’s about Uncle Alex—again.”
“This time,” said Prike, “there is no doubt about it. Mr. Blenn is dead.”
Ruth Ingram’s smile persisted, mechanically, without meaning. For three days she had steeled herself for the shock of this news. Now it had come, it was without impact, without reality. She said nothing.
Woodring, too, was silent. He took the girl’s hand, found it limp and cold in his fingers.
It was Hubertson who spoke. In a horrified whisper he exclaimed: “How—What happened, inspector?”
“He was shot to death at the Lamasery of the Red Monks on Lebong Road,” said Prike. “My colleague, Robbins, seems to think he committed suicide.”
“That’s impossible!” Ruth Ingram broke her silence with a burst of indignation. “You don’t know my uncle! He’d never kill himself!”
“Good!” Prike seemed well pleased. “I’m glad to hear you say that. Are you angry enough to accompany me to the police station?”
“Certainly, I’ll come!” the girl said.
“And you’ll come, too, Mr. Hubertson?” asked Prike. “And Mr. Woodring? And this Indian lad—?”
“Georges Clemenceau Malaswaram,” prompted the Tamil. “Am quite happy to offer humble co-operation.”
In a room at Darjeeling police headquarters, Deputy-Inspector Robbins was waiting with two constables, Count Vaznilko, Leda Carmaine, and Quombi La. “Robbins,” said Prike, as he walked in with his group, “Miss Ingram doesn’t believe Blenn shot himself.”
“Did you tell her, inspector,” Robbins asked, “that the gun in his hand was the ’38 that killed Basil Stiller and Dr. Feurmann?”
“No, I didn’t, Robbins,” said Prike, “because I’m of Miss Ingram’s opinion. Blenn was murdered.”
“Murdered?”
“Certainly,” said Prike. “I’m sure that tests with Lunge’s reagent will establish later that Blenn did not fire that gun. In the meantime, I’m satisfied that I’m right, by the very nature of the gunshot wound.”
A chaprassi came into the room and handed Prike a telegram. Prike glanced at it, then continued:
“A man really intent on destroying himself, doesn’t miss. He wants to end his life, not to suffer. Therefore he shoots himself in the head or the heart—not through the abdomen, as Alexander Blenn was shot. He must have suffered agonies before he died.”
“Then why didn’t somebody hear him yell, inspector?” Robbins asked, looking at Quombi La.
“For the same reason that no one seems to have heard the shot,” said Pike. “The sound accompaniment to the rites of Lamaism is sufficient to drown out any minor noises within a wide radius.”
“Have you … is there any indication that Mr. Jericho might be in Darjeeling?” asked Woodring.
“I eliminated Christopher Jericho automatically,” Prike replied, “because Blenn was killed to-night by some one he knew and trusted. He would not have left his hiding-place back of the monastery for Jericho of whom he was mortally afraid. This theory has just been confirmed by a message from London. Scotland Yard cables: ‘Christopher Jericho apprehended Tilbury Dock while boarding India mail steamer.’”
There was a thick silence as Prike scanned faces.
After a moment Stanley Hubertson cleared his throat and asked timidly: “Then who do you think, inspector, might have killed Mr. Blenn?”
“Why, you did, Mr. Hubertson,” said Prike blandly.
Stanley Hubertson slid forward to the edge of his chair. He removed his pince-nez, blinked at Prike. “You can’t mean that, inspector!” he exclaimed.
Prike nodded to Robbins. “Tell Jenkins to bring his man in here,” he said.
Jenkins, a tall, bony detective, came in with a grey-bearded Hindu servant.
“This man is your bearer, is he not, Hubertson?” Prike demanded.
“Why, yes …”
“He has been in your service for fifteen years?”
“Ever since I came to India, yes.”
“Why didn’t he accompany you to Darjeeling?”
“I thought I could pick up a servant here,” said Hubertson. “One who knew the country would be more useful. Besides, I owed Motilal a holiday.”
“So that he would not be readily available for questioning by the police?”
“Not at all,” Hubertson protested.
“But you know, of course,” said Prike, “what Motilal has confessed to the police?”
A terrified denial broke from the lips of the bearded servant. “That is not true, Sahib,” he shrieked. “I have confessed nothing! They have threatened me. They have asked stupid questions. But I have told nothing, Sahib—because I know nothing.”
“We don’t need his confession,” interrupted Jenkins. “The attendant at the burning ghat has identified Motilal as one of the men who brought in Stiller’s body for cremation.”
“What have you to say to that, Hubertson?”
“There has been some error,” Hubertson murmured.
“Indeed there has—several,” said Prike. “But most of the errors were yours, Hubertson. For instance the elaborate alibi you constructed for the murder of Dr. Feurmann was a trifle too elaborate. You said you saw Feurmann at the window when the shot was fired. You suggested—quite plausibly—that he might have walked a dozen steps to the bed before he collapsed. Only in this case, Hubertson, it was impossible for Feurmann to have taken a single step. Your bullet shattered his spine. And a man with a broken spine instantly loses the use of his legs.
“Naturally, when I caught you in one lie, Hubertson, I had to recheck your other statements—the story of your receiving a phone call from Alexander Blenn from Stiller’s apartment on the night that Stiller was murdered. That is when I telephoned Jenkins in Calcutta to round up your servants and take them to the burning ghat for possible identification….”
“But why should I have killed Feurmann, whom I didn’t know?” Hubertson protested.
“Another error. You meant to kill Woodring.”
Paul Woodring’s jaw dropped. “Me? But why”
“I shall begin at the beginning,” said Prike. “And Mr. Hubertson I’m sure, will correct me if I make minor errors in motivation, as I am reasoning from fragmentary evidence and my knowledge of human nature.”
He paused. Hubertson glowered in sullen silence.
“Mr. Hubertson is the recent inventor of a highly efficient carburettor,” Prike continued, “which is apt to revolutionise the whole world of internal combustion motors. If it succeeds, it would bring millions in royalties. Even if it did not succeed, it would probably bring millions from the petroleum interests, who frightened by the prospect of a greatly reduced consumption of their product, would buy the patents to keep it off the market. Is that correct, Mr. Hubertson?”
“I know nothing of its commercial value,” murmured the white-haired engineer.
“Ah, but you do,” insisted Inspector Prike. “And that is just the point. You are a salaried employé of the Blenn organisation and since your carburettor was developed in the Blenn workshops, the patents belonged to Blenn. You knew it would be hopeless to ask a man like Blenn for participation in the profits, because you had the example of Christopher Jericho before you. I don’t know how crazy Jericho was when he threatened to kill Blenn, but I strongly suspect that he was not as crazy as the court believed. At any rate, Jericho’s rightful profits for fifteen years have gone to Blenn.
“You’ve been brooding over Jericho for the past year, Hubertson. You’ve been brooding to such an extent that you paid out of your own pocket to have Jericho moved to a private nursing home. And as a result of your brooding, you saw Jericho’s fate in store for you. You saw yourself old, stripped of the fruits of your labours, perhaps put conveniently away—like Jericho. So you resolved to act, you resolved to come into your own, to shake off the leeches like Blenn and his successor, Basil Stiller.”
“I had nothing against Stiller,” muttered Hubertson.
“Except,” corrected Prike, “that he was a second Blenn, like him in every way—hard, ruthless, greedy. So you decided to kill two birds with one stone. You shot Stiller, and planted triple suspicion on Blenn. You knew Blenn was mortally afraid of Jericho, so when you read that Jericho was at large, you forged the telegram which you knew would send Blenn into hiding. You’re a clever draughtsman, Hubertson, as clever as any engineer I’ve known—but I think that hanwriting experts will be able to show the court that the loop of your g’s and the terminal stroke of your t’s carry over into your forgeries. Then you told your story of the telephone call, which established Blenn at Stiller’s flat at the time of the murder. As a final bit of false evidence, you left an empty .32 cartridge on the scene of the crime. This was not difficult, since you had access to the Blenn armoury and were more or less custodian of the ordnance register, but it showed that you planned the crime in advance, since the .32 automatic was issued to Blenn several days previous. The fact that you shot Stiller with a .38 did not bother you, since you expected the bullet to be lost when Stiller’s body was cremated.
“When, however, you learned that I discovered the body intact, you contrived to keep suspicion still pointing to Blenn. You altered the armoury list—microscopic examination of the paper shows plainly the erasure and substitution of the forged signature—to show that your .38 was also issued to Blenn. Now you were ready to follow Blenn to Darjeeling and finish your job. With Blenn and Stiller out of the way, you were confident that Miss Ingram would turn to you, veteran of the organization, to be the new Czar of the Blenn empire. At last you would come into your own.
“En route to Darjeeling, however, you discovered a new fly in your ointment. You discovered that Paul Woodring was not only an alert, intelligent, up-and-coming young man, but that a sentimental bond seemed in the process of formation between Woodring and Blenn’s heiress. Woodring was showing altogether too much promise. Therefore he had to be eliminated.
“You knew that Woodring was to register as John Mapleleaf. You could ascertain from the hotel register that John Mapleleaf was in Room 329. You did not know, however, that the Nawab of Shimalghar was playing a Machiavellian game and had passed on the pseudonym to his German friends in an effort to thwart Blenn. Therefore you sent a chit in the name of the Nawab’s envoy—another piece of evidence for the handwriting experts, by the way—to Room 329, suggesting the door be left open.
“In the meantime you had broken your spectacles. By your own admission, and by the convexity of the glasses you wear, you suffer from severe hypermetropia. Therefore, when you walked into 329 and saw a man lying on the bed, your unfocused eyes were unable to distinguish his features. Convinced it was Woodring, you muffled your automatic with a blanket, and shot him.
“I have already gone into the story you concocted as an alibi which you strengthened, of course, by having the optometrist’s chaprassi find you undressed.
“Your .38, when you had done with it, you left in the hand of your last victim. When we have made paraffin moulds of your own hands and have tested them for nitrates, I am sure we will find that you fired the shot that killed Blenn, although I admit I cannot say as yet how you discovered Blenn’s hiding-place at the Lebong Road Lamasery.”
“I … I’m afraid I gave that away,” said Woodring contritely. “I told him that the Shimalghar deal was to be settled at the Lamasery of the Red Monks to-night.”
“In that event,” said Inspector Prike, reaching into his pocket for a Trichinopoly cheroot, “the case is settled—unless, Mr. Hubertson, you have some explanation to offer.”
Stanley Hubertson had been growing years older with every minute of Inspector Prike’s monologue. His narrow shoulders stooped more and more, the furrows of his face deepened, his thin hands hung limply between his knees. His white-thatched head might have been carved in stone. His eyes had lost their glitter as they stared dully into space.
“I’m glad I killed Blenn,” he whispered.
His spindly legs collapsed under him, and he fell in a dead faint.
Ruth Ingram rose, her eyes big with mingled horror and pity, reproach and bewilderment. With a little sob, she buried her face on Woodring’s shoulder.
The Darjeeling Mail was coasting down the steep slopes of the Outer Himalayas. Night was already drinking in the colour from the mountainside, and the moss and creepers hung from the trees as somberly as a widow’s veils. An electric headlight was searching out the curves ahead, while a few furlongs back, the second section of the Mail slid down the incline, a great orange flare licking up the darkness before its locomotive.
Paul Woodring’s ears were buzzing with the change in altitude. His fingers were tightly clasped about the small hand of Ruth Ingram, who sat in silence beside him. Neither had spoken for miles. Woodring preferred not to talk for the present. In fact, he was not sure there was a present. He felt himself suspended in time, at an unreal point between the past and the future, between nightmare and the sunlight of awakening. The past—it seemed very far away now—had ended that morning. Hubertson was in custody, Vaznilko was glad to plead guilty to kidnapping, Leda Carmaine was awaiting deportation. And now …
The toy train was stopping. The cart road crossed the railway at the station ahead, and the locomotive was panting deferentially while a string of motor lorries rumbled past in seemingly endless succession. The door opened and Inspector Prike came in.
“I’m intruding, I know,” he said, “but I hope you won’t mind too much.”
“Not at all,” said Woodring. “Perhaps you can tell me where all these lorries are going?”
“They’re troop replacements,” Prike said. “They’re taking over at Jalapahar and Lebong from the regiments that are moving up into Shimalghar.”
“Shimalghar?”
“That’s one of the provisions of the new treaty,” said Prike. “It was drawn up this morning—probably an all time diplomatic record. The treaty was written and initialled, all in the space of two hours. Of course, the Nawab couldn’t very well object to any of our stipulations. And by the way, that’s why I stopped by. One of the clauses of the treaty calls for an automatic extension of the Blenn Concession in Shimalghar—in case you people care to go ahead. The new political officer insisted on that provision.”
“Who’s the new political officer?” Woodring asked.
“He’s a rather brilliant young agent of the Foreign Department,” said Prike. “Perhaps a bit bibulous for a man in his profession, but he has the saving grace of never losing his head, even when he’s in his cups. He did say, however, that he came uncomfortably close to losing his head last night under one blow of a kukri, if it hadn’t been for you, Woodring.”
“Emmet-Tansley!” Woodring exclaimed.
“That’s his name,” said Prike. “He’s been in Darjeeling for the past year, quietly studying the frontier situation while acting as a mathematics professor at some boys school. At any rate he seemed very grateful to you, Woodring, and asked me to tell you about that concession.”
“I’ll be damned!” said Woodring.
“Good-night,” said Prike, closing the door.
The last of the lorries rumbled by. The door opened again and Georges Clemenceau Malaswaram put in his head.
“Sahib?” he called.
There was no answer. The Tamil was puzzled, as he stared into the gloom of the compartment, because he was sure Woodring and the Mem-sahib were in there. And yet he saw only one person sitting in the corner. He cleared his throat and was about to say something when it occurred to him that he was wrong, that there were really two persons sitting at the end of the seat, but that they apeared as one because they were sitting so close together.
Discreetly Georges Clemenceau Malaswaram withdrew his head. He closed the door softly.
The Darjeeling Mail began to move again, rolling downward to the plains of Bengal, toward the future.
About the Author
Lawrence G. Blochman (1900–1975) was an Edgar Award–winning author of mystery novels, a prominent translator of international crime fiction, and served as the fourth president of the Mystery Writers of America. He died in New York City.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1938 by Lawrence G. Blochman
Cover design by Ian Koviak
ISBN: 978-1-5040-8574-8
This edition published in 2023 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
180 Maiden Lane
New York, NY 10038
www.openroadmedia.com
THE INSPECTOR PRIKE MYSTERIES
FROM MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
AND OPEN ROAD MEDIA
MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
Otto Penzler, owner of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan, founded the Mysterious Press in 1975. Penzler quickly became known for his outstanding selection of mystery, crime, and suspense books, both from his imprint and in his store. The imprint was devoted to printing the best books in these genres, using fine paper and top dust-jacket artists, as well as offering many limited, signed editions.
