“Why in darkness?” Devereaux asked, staring up at the dark outline of the building.
“The lights have fused. As soon as we put in a new fuse, it blows.” Guidet sounded exasperated. “I’ve got an electrician checking the wiring. In the meantime we have candles.”
“So he is dead?” Devereaux said, walking into the lobby.
“Yes, he’s dead,” Guidet said. “He hanged himself.”
On the reception desk were five flickering candles that threw a yellow circle of light on Madame Brossette’s gross body lying where it had fallen at the foot of the stairs.
“Hello!” Devereaux exclaimed, coming to an abrupt stop. “What happened here?”
“My guess is she found Kerr, rushed downstairs to call the ambulance and fell,” Guidet said indifferently. “The stairs are dangerously steep. Anyway, it’s saved her getting into trouble with us. She deliberately lied when we asked her if Kerr was here.”
At this moment the Medical Officer, Dr. Mathieu, came in.
He went immediately to the body and made a quick examination.
“Her neck is broken,” he said, looking at Devereaux. “A woman of such a weight... such a fall... ” He shrugged his shoulders.
“And Kerr?” Devereaux asked.
“Upstairs.”
Guidet turned on a powerful electric torch and guided Devereaux up the narrow stairs.
“So he was here all the time,” Devereaux said as he walked into the room beyond the broom cupboard. “No wonder we didn’t find him.”
Lemont was in the room, lighting more candles.
Guidet threw the beam of his torch on Joe Kerr.
Joe hung from the scarlet cord that was fastened to a hook on the back of the door. His long, bony legs were curled up so that the weight of his body had tightened the running noose of the cord. His raddled face was a pale mauve colour; his lips were drawn off his teeth in a snarl of terror.
“He hanged himself with the missing curtain cord,” Guidet said. “I’ve been through his pockets. In one of them I found a blue bead.” He went over to the bedside table and pointed to the bead. “It’s from the girl’s necklace.”
Devereaux glanced at the bead, then back to Joe.
“No confession or suicide note?”
“No.” Guidet picked up the half empty bottle of whisky. “Looks as if he had been drinking heavily.”
“Well, there doesn’t seem much doubt that he killed the girl and in a drunken fit of remorse, he hanged himself,” Devereaux said.
While he was speaking the lights went on.
“Ah! That’s better,” Guidet said. “I’ll have the body photographed and then taken down.”
Devereaux nodded. He was feeling tired, but satisfied. The case had cleared up nicely.
“I wonder why he did it,” he said. “You know, Guidet, this seems almost too simple, but it often happens this way. Just when one thinks one has a difficult case on one’s hands, the thing solves itself. Still, we’d better be on the safe side. Take his fingerprints. Let’s see if they check with the print we found on the other bead.”
Guidet shrugged his shoulders.
“All right, but I don’t think there’s any doubt about it — he’s our man.”
Lemont, who had gone downstairs to fetch the police photographer, now returned, followed by the photographer.
Devereaux moved out into the passage to give the photographer room in which to work.
A man, carrying a metal toolbox, came out of a room at the head of the stairs. He paused when he saw Devereaux.
“The blown fuse was caused by this, monsieur,” he said and handed Devereaux a ten franc piece. “It was screwed into the light socket in that room.”
Devereaux thanked the man. When the electrician had gone, Devereaux beckoned to Lemont.
“Did the lights go out before or after you heard the woman fall?”
“Some minutes after. They went out when I was examining the body. I imagine one of the men caught here fused the lights in order to get away. As soon as the lights failed, there was a rush for the exit. Farcau had no chance of stopping anyone.”
Devereaux grinned.
“I can’t say I blame them.”
He dropped the ten franc piece into his pocket.
Dr. Mathieu came up the stairs.
“Another customer for you, doctor,” Devereaux said. “Take a look at him. I don’t think there’s any doubt he’s the one who killed the poor girl.”
Dr. Mathieu nodded and went into the room beyond the broom cupboard. The photographer had completed his work and Guidet and Lemont got Joe’s body on to the bed.
Ten minutes later Mathieu came out into the passage, a puzzled frown on his face.
“Well?” Devereaux asked. He was leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette, thinking longingly of his bed.
“I’ll arrange to have him taken to the mortuary, Inspector. I want to check him over much more thoroughly. There are a couple of points that puzzle me. He has a bruise in the middle of his back. It’s a recent one and I’m wondering how he got it. I’ve seen a bruise like that before and it is consistent with a knee being forced between the shoulder blades.”
Devereaux stiffened.
“You mean he didn’t commit suicide? That someone strangled him?”
Mathieu shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know, but the bruise worries me.”
“And the second point?”
“You remember I told you I found skin under the girl’s fingernails indicating that she badly scratched her killer? This man has no scratches on his body.”
Devereaux made a movement of exasperation.
“You are sure she scratched her killer?”
“There’s no doubt about it.”
“And there’re no scratches of any kind on this man?”
“None.”
Devereaux exchanged glances with Guidet.
“The finger-prints?”
“They’re being checked now.”
As Dr. Mathieu moved down the stairs, Devereaux took the ten franc piece from his pocket and stared at it, then he called Lemont.
“You were watching outside the hotel. Did you see a man enter on his own?”
Lemont shook his head.
“No, Inspector. Every man who came here had a woman with him.”
The finger-print expert came out into the passage.
“The print we found on the bead in suite 30 of the Plaza hotel doesn’t match any of Kerr’s prints.”
Devereaux swore softly under his breath, then he thought for a moment.
“Go into that room,” he said, pointing to the room at the head of the stairs, “and check the prints on the electric light bulb.”
The finger-print expert went down the corridor and entered the room in which Jay had hidden.
There was a long pause while Devereaux continued to lean against the wall, smoking, his face set in a heavy scowl.
Recognizing the scowl as a danger sign that the Inspector was testy and tired, both Guidet and Lemont kept quiet.
A few minutes later, the finger-print expert came out of the room.
“A good guess, Inspector. There’s a print on the lamp bulb that matches the one on the bead. No doubt about it.”
Devereaux dropped his half-smoked cigarette on the floor, then stepped viciously on it.
“So we haven’t solved the case,” he said. “I had an idea it was too simple. Well, all right. We’ll start again. At least we know whoever made that print is our man. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find him.” He beckoned to Guidet. “Come with me. We’ll go to the Plaza hotel and we’ll make a fresh start.”
Lemont watched the two men walk down the stairs, then he took out a packet of cigarettes, lit a cigarette and gratefully inhaled the smoke.
Chapter XII
I
With her back against the wall, Sophia watched the bathroom door swing silently open.
She was tense and her face was hard and pale and she was breathing rapidly, but she was much more curious than afraid.