“Make a note, Mary, next time you go shopping, and buy nothing that is not ‘from, only.’ Proceed, Peter-and let us have a little less of your English tongue.”
“Yes. Well, here is a young man who starts to write a warning letter. Before he can complete it, he falls downstairs and is killed. Is that, or is it not, a darned suspicious circumstance?”
“So suspicious that it is probably the purest coincidence. But since you have a fancy for melodrama, we will allow it to be suspicious. Who saw him die?”
“I, said the fly. Meaning one Mr. Atkins and one Mrs. Crump, who saw the fall from below, and one Mr. Prout who saw it from above. All their evidence is interesting. Mr. Prout says that the staircase was well-lit, and that deceased was not going extra fast, while the others say that he fell all of a heap, forwards, clutching The Times Atlas in so fierce a grip that it could afterwards hardly be prised from his fingers. What does that suggest to you?”
“Only that the death was instantaneous, which it would be if one broke one’s neck.”
“I know. But look here! You are going downstairs and your foot slips. What happens? Do you crumple forwards and dive down head first? Or do you sit down suddenly on your tail and do the rest of the journey that way?”
“It depends. If it was actually a slip, I should probably come down on my tail. But if I tripped, I should very likely dive forwards. You can’t tell, without knowing just how it happened.”
“All right. You always have an answer. Well, now-do you clutch what you’re carrying with a deathly grip-or do you chuck it, and try to save yourself by grabbing hold of the banisters?”
Mr. Parker paused. “I should probably grab,” he said, slowly, “unless I was carrying a tray full of crockery, or anything. And even then… I don’t know. Perhaps it’s an instinct to hold on to what one’s got. But equally it’s an instinct to try and save one’s self. I don’t know. All this arguing about what you and I would do and what the reasonable man would do is very unsatisfactory.”
Wimsey groaned. “Put it this way, doubting Thomas. If the death-grip was due to instantaneous rigor, he must have been dead so quickly that he couldn’t think of saving himself. Now, there are two possible causes of death-the broken neck, which he must have got when he pitched on his head at the bottom, and the crack on the temple, which is attributed to his hitting his skull on one of the knobs on the banisters. Now, falling down a staircase isn’t like falling off a roof-you do it in instalments, and have time to think about it. If he killed himself by hitting the banisters, he must have fallen first and hit himself afterwards. The same thing applies, with still more force, to his breaking his neck. Why, when he felt himself going, didn’t he drop everything and break his fall?”
“I know what you want me to say,” said Parker. “That he was sandbagged first and dead before he fell. But I don’t see it. I say he would have caught his toe in something and tripped forwards and struck his head straight away and died of that. There’s nothing impossible about it.”
“Then I’ll try again. How’s this? That same evening, Mrs. Crump, the head charwoman, picked up this onyx scarab in the passage, just beneath the iron staircase. It is, as you see, rounded and smooth and heavy for its size, which is much about that of the iron knobs on the staircase. It has, as you also see, a slight chip on one side. It belonged to the dead man, who was accustomed to carry it in his waistcoat pocket or keep it sitting on the desk beside him while he worked. What about it?”
“I should say it fell from his pocket when he fell.”
“And the chip?”
“If it wasn’t there before-”
“It wasn’t; his sister says she’s sure it wasn’t.”
“Then it got chipped in falling.”
“You think that?”
“I do.”
“I think you were meant to think that. To continue: some few days earlier, Mrs. Crump found a smooth pebble of much the same size as the scarab lying in the same passage at the foot of the iron staircase.”
“Did she?” said Parker. He uncurled himself from the window-seat and made for the decanters. “What does she say about it?”
“Says that you’d scarcely believe the queer odds and ends she finds when she’s cleaning out the office. Attributes the stone to Mr. Atkins, he having taken his seaside holiday early on account of ill-health.”
“Well,” said Parker, releasing the lever of the soda-siphon, “and why not?”
“Why not, indeed? This other pebble, which I here produce, was found by me on the roof to the lavatory. I had to shin down a pipe to get it, and ruined a pair of flannel bags.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Okay, captain. That’s where I found it. I also found a place where the paint had been chipped off the skylight.”
“What skylight?”
“The skylight that is directly over the iron staircase. It’s one of those pointed things, like a young greenhouse, and it has windows that open all around-you know the kind I mean-which are kept open in hot weather. It was hot weather when young Dean departed this life.”
“The idea being that somebody heaved a stone at him through the skylight?”
“You said it, chief. Or, to be exact, not a stone, but the stone. Meaning the scarab.”
“And how about the other stones?”
“Practice shots. I’ve ascertained that the office is always practically empty during the lunch-hour. Nobody much ever goes on the roof, except the office-boys for their P.J.’s at 8.30 ack emma.”
“People who live in glass skylights shouldn’t throw stones. Do you mean to suggest that by chucking a small stone like this at a fellow, you’re going to crack his skull open and break his neck for him?”
“Not if you just throw it, of course. But how about a sling or a catapult?”
“Oh, in that case, you’ve only got to ask the people in the neighbouring offices if they’ve seen anybody enjoying a spot of David and Goliath exercise on Pym’s roof, and you’ve got him.”
“It’s not as simple as that. The roof’s quite a good bit higher than the roofs of the surrounding buildings, and it has a solid stone parapet all round about three feet high-to give an air of still greater magnificence, I suppose. To sling a stone through on to the iron staircase you’d have to kneel down in a special position between that skylight and the next, and you can’t be seen from anywhere-unless somebody happened to be on the staircase looking up-which nobody obviously was, except Victor Dean, poor lad. It’s safe as houses.”
“Very well, then. Find out if any member of the staff has frequently stayed in at lunch-time.”
Wimsey shook his head.
“No bon. The staff clock in every morning, but there are no special tabs kept on them at 1 o’clock. The reception clerk goes out to his lunch, and one of the elder boys takes his place at the desk, just in case any message or parcel comes in, but he’s not there necessarily every moment of the time. Then there’s the lad who hops round with Jeyes’ Fluid in a squirt, but he doesn’t go on to the roof. There’s nothing to prevent anybody from going up, say at half past twelve, and staying there till he’s done his bit of work and then simply walking out down the staircase. The lift-man, or his locum tenens, would be on duty, but you’ve only to keep on the blind side of the lift as you pass and he couldn’t possibly see you. Besides, the lift might quite well have gone down to the basement. All the bloke would have to do would just be to bide his time and walk out. There’s nothing in it. Similarly, on the day of the death. He goes through towards the lavatory, which is reached from the stairs. When the coast is clear, he ascends to the roof. He lurks there, till he sees his victim start down the iron staircase, which everybody does, fifty times a day. He whangs off his bolt and departs. Everybody is picking up the body and exclaiming over it, when in walks our friend, innocently, from the lav. It’s as simple as pie.”