Detective and mystery stories; Forensic scientists -- Fiction
Lomas did not answer till they were upstairs. “Well, no. Not to say
anything,” he resumed, and lit a cigarette. “I want another opinion,
as you fellows say. Sir Lawson Hunter has made up his mind.”
“Oh, he always does that.”
Lomas lifted an eyebrow. “Well, look at it. Somebody in a car laid
for our Archduke. The other poor devil was cut down by mistake. And
the somebody had nerve enough to go on. That’s striking. The
Archduchess comes of pretty wild stock. In love or out of love she
wouldn’t stick at a trifle. You find her matches by each body. You
find a hatpin in the Archduke. That’s a blunder, what? Yes, but it’s
a woman’s blunder. She finds he isn’t quite dead after all her
trouble, she is desperate, and--_voilà_.” He made a gesture of
stabbing.
“So you’ve made up your mind too, Mr. Lomas?”
Lomas blew smoke rings. “I’m wasting your time, doctor. I want to
know--has it occurred to you--the Archduchess and the Archduke
Leopold--working it together? If she’s fallen in love with Leopold.
That straightens it out, don’t you know.”
“Guess again,” Reggie said.
Lomas lit another cigarette. “Well, that’s what I want to know. You
saw them together just after the crime.” He lifted an eyebrow.
“Nothing doing,” said Reggie.
“I’m afraid so. I’m afraid so. It’s a disturbing case, doctor.
Nothing doing, as you say. If I had all the evidence in my hands, I
expect there’s no one I could touch. You can’t indict royalty. The
Archduke’s smash--well, let’s say it’s all in the family. But this
poor devil they killed! Who’s to pay for him? These royal dagoes come
over and run amuck on an English road, and I can’t touch them.
Disheartening, what? That’s the trouble, doctor.”
Reggie nodded and, as his breakfast made its appearance, Lomas rose
to go. He would not have even coffee. “Better get busy, don’t you
know. We must see if we can put the fear of God into them. If they’ll
go scurrying back to Bohemia it’s the best way out.” He skipped off,
his jauntiness put on again like a coat.
Reggie was standing at the window with his after-breakfast pipe when
the Archduchess brought her car back. She was very pale in spite of
the morning air, and her face had grown haggard. “Something’ll snap,”
Reggie was saying to himself, when a voice behind him said aloud,
“Nice car, sir.” He jumped round and saw standing at his elbow the
insignificant little companion of Mr. Lomas. “After all, there’s
nothing like an English car,” said the little man.
“Oh. You’ve noticed that?” Reggie said. “You do notice something,
then?”
“Of course we aren’t gifted, sir. But we’re professional. Something
in that, don’t you think? Yes, sir, as you say: we have noticed
something. It was a foreign car, and foreign tyres did the trick last
night. And the Archduchess drives English. And yet--did you know we
had the other half of the hatpin? I picked it up last night.” He held
out a scrap of steel with a big head of wrought silver. “German work,
they tell me.”
“Viennese,” Reggie said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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