Murder In Blue , livre ebook

Galileo Publishing - Clifford Witting

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122 pages

English

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John Rutherford, bookseller and sometime fiction writer, discovers the bludgeoned corpse of a policeman one evening while taking a stroll in a rainstorm. The policeman's overturned bicycle is what first catches Rutherford's eye. Then he sees Officer Johnson's body sprawled on the sodden ground of Phantom Coppice. Rutherford takes Johnson's bike and pedals to rural Paulsfield police station, two miles away, to report the crime. There he finds Sgt. Martin who initiates calls to a doctor, a photographer and Inspector Charlton. But it is not these two lead detectives who are the most interesting characters of the book. That honour goes to 19 year old George Stubbings, assistant at 'Voslivres,' the bookshop Rutherford owns. George is a detective story addict and he is keen on solving the various mysteries surrounding Johnson's violent death. He is both ingenuous in dealing with Rutherford and ingenious in his precocious observations about the apparent murder. Murder in Blue is the second o

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Publié par	Galileo Publishing
Date de parution	07 octobre 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781912916566
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Also by Clifford Witting
subject-murder
measure for murder
the case of the michelmas goose
midsummer murder
let x be the murderer
dead on time
catt out of the bag

Galileo Publishers
16 Woodlands Road Great Shelford Cambridge
CB22 5LW UK
www.galileopublishing.co.uk
Distributed in the USA by SCB Distributors
15608 S. New Century Drive Gardena, CA 90248-2129, USA
Australia: Peribo Pty Limited
58 Beaumont Road
Mount Kuring-Gai, NSW 2080
Australia
ISBN 978-1-912916-50-4
First published 1937
This edition © 2021
Cover painting by William Grant
by kind permission Hampshire Cultural Trust
All rights reserved.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Printed in the EU

A note from Clifford Witting’s daughter, Diana Cummings
Murder in Blue was my father’s first book out of the 16 he went on to write. It was written while he was still commuting to London for his day job and he worked on it every evening. As if this wasn’t enough to cope with, I was born in 1935 and during the early months of my life he could hear me screaming in the next room, distracting him from the very complicated business of writing a detective story! How thrilled he would have been to know that some 84 years later it would be reprinted amid a renewed interest in the Golden Age of Detection, introducing his name and distinct subtle humour to new readers. His style is still as fresh and easy to read as when he wrote it all those years ago.
He set a large number of his books in the small town of Paulsfield in the county of Downshire, behind the South Downs. This is based on Petersfield in Hampshire and he includes many references to the real town as it was in the mid-1930s: in the market place stands a statue of King William III mounted on a horse which in turn is mounted on a large stone plinth. My father demoted the King to a mere Lord but otherwise the statue is easily recognisable to this day although the surrounding iron railings have long gone. Local residents and visitors will also notice references to the pond as illustrated on the front cover of this book. Paulsfield again provided the location for a later book that he wrote entitled Catt Out of the Bag , also recently reissued.
I hope you enjoy Murder in Blue as much as I have enjoyed seeing it brought back to life.

Contents
I I BECOME INVOLVED IN MURDER
II WHICH HARKS BACK
III ENTER GEORGE
IV I ATTEND A PUBLIC ENQUIRY
V WHICH INTRODUCES MAGGIE WOOD
VI I TURN ARITHMETICIAN
VII THE PROVIDENTIAL BARKING OF A DOG
VIII TEA FOR THREE
IX DIDCOTT ON THE CARPET
X UNDERNEATH THE GRATE
XI UNCLE HARRY
XII THE RETURN OF JIMMY STEVANO
XIII THE SECOND DEATH
XIV THE INSPECTOR GETS A NIBBLE
XV THE LANGDON BROTHERS TALK
XVI IN WHICH I ASK FOR TROUBLE
XVII GEORGE’ S MR. A.
XVIII ENVOI

Sunday, November 10th
I. I BECOME INVOLVED IN MURDER
I shielded the match from the rain with a hand that shook a little and looked down at the body of the policeman lying on the grass bank by the side of the lane, with the head, terribly battered, lolling grotesquely back over the edge of the ditch. Stretched on his back, slightly sideways across the bank, with his feet not quite touching the road and his arms flung wide under his shiny black cape, he seemed more like the carcase of some gigantic bat; and as the November rain mingled with the blood still seeping through his dark, curly hair and dripped, a dirty red, into the stagnant water of the ditch, I felt rather sick.
It was the bicycle that I had noticed first, as I walked along the lane. It was lying on the opposite side of the road to the body, with a handle-bar resting on the bank, just as it might have fallen from a man’s relaxing grip. Then I had seen Johnson. I knew him well: a good-looking, smiling, friendly sort of chap. His teeth were clenched on his protruding tongue; and when I carefully felt his wrist, without disturbing his position, there seemed no flicker of life in the pulse.
Everything was deathly quiet. The hiss of the rain through the branches of the trees in Phantom Coppice and the dull beat of it on the bare cornfield to the other side of the lane, were the only sounds. The second match burnt down to my fingers, and I dropped it on the road. Suddenly, half a mile away, a train whistled as it entered Burgeston tunnel; and in the darkness I caught my breath.
“John Rutherford,” I murmured, “pull yourself together.”
I wondered what was the best thing to do. It was no good staying where I was, in the hope that someone came along that lonely lane. I might wait all night. Hazeloak village was the nearest place, but there was no doctor there. Paulsfield town lay two miles away. Would it not be best to get there as quickly as I could and tell the police? Speed was the first consideration, for, in spite of what I thought, Johnson might not yet be dead. Was I going to walk or was I going to take the bicycle? Its position might be valuable as evidence, but I decided to take the risk of moving it.
I lighted another match and picked up the machine. The lamp was out and a good deal of the oil had dripped on to the road, but the wick flared up when I put the match to it. I looked at the luminous watch on my wrist. Seven minutes past nine. As I swung the machine round, the light from the lamp picked out something lying in the road close to the bank on which Johnson lay. It was his cap—a dark blue forage-cap, with a waterproof cover. Police-constables in Downshire do not wear helmets. I picked it up and laid it on the grass by Johnson’s side. Then I rode off.
The hands of the church clock were pointing to nine-seventeen, as I rode round the statue in Paulsfield Square and turned into the deserted High Street. I leant the bicycle against the railings outside the police station and ran up the steps. As I pushed open the door of the charge-room, Sergeant Martin looked up from his desk. He and I knew each other well.
“Hullo, Mr. Rutherford!” he greeted me. “What brings you ’ere?”
By this time I had got a grip on myself.
“Your man Johnson has been murdered,” I said bluntly.
“Oh, has ’e?” chuckled Martin. “and who did it—the sparrow, with ’is bow and arrow?”
“I’m not joking, Martin,” I protested. “This is dead serious. I’ve just found his body on the Hazeloak road, about a mile past Deeptree Corner. Head’s battered in.”
The smile disappeared from Martin’s round red face.
“Good God!” he said.
“If he isn’t dead, he’s in a very bad way,” I said, “and the sooner you get a doctor to him, the better. I’ve got his bicycle outside. It was lying in the road just by him; and I thought I had better use it to get here as speedily as possible.”
Martin’s finger eased the collar of his tunic.
“Johnson, eh? ’Ead smashed in. Murdered. Good God!”
He suddenly got up from his stool and went to the door behind his desk.
“Harwood come in yet?” he called.
“Yes, Sergeant?” I heard a voice answer.
“Got your motor-bike, Harwood? . . . Good. Bring it round to the front and get Chandler in the side-car. Sharp about it! Johnson’s been found dead.”
He closed the door and went to the telephone.
“Hullo! Get me 25. . . . Dr. Weston’s house? . . . Police-sergeant Martin here. Doctor in? . . . Where? . . . Burgeston? . . . When’s ’e due back? . . . Any moment? . . . Tell him to come round to the police station as soon as he gets in, will you? And if he’s not back in ten minutes, please ring me. . . . Yes, it’s urgent. . . . Right. Good-bye.”
I heard a motor-cycle start up. The Sergeant’s thumb made the ’phone-bell tinkle.
“Lulverton 2429. . . . That you, Weller? Martin here, Paulsfield. . . . Inspector Charlton in? . . . Gone home? What’s his number? . . . Southmouth 8321? Thanks. Good-bye.”
I heard the motor-cycle come along the side of the building. Martin asked for his number.
“Is that Inspector Charlton’s house? . . . Is the Inspector in, miss? I want to speak to him urgently. Sergeant Martin of Paulsfield . . . Thank you, miss. . . . Hullo! Inspector Charlton? Sergeant Martin ’ere, sir. . . . I’ve just had word that Constable Johnson—one of my men—’as been found with his ’ead smashed in. . . . Yes, sir, I should think so, from what I hear. . . . On the Hazeloak road. . . . Yes, sir, ’e’s with me now. I’m sending a couple of men along at once. . . . You’ll come over, sir? . . . Take the London road, sir, until it branches off to Burgeston, carry on through Burgeston, until you get to Deeptree Corner. . . . You know it, sir? . . . Turn sharp right at the Corner and you’ll find ’im down that lane—about a mile along. . . . Ask him to stay ’ere till you come? Certainly, sir. . . . Good-bye, sir.”
He hung up the receiver and went to the door leading to the street, where Harwood and Chandler waited for instructions, Harwood, a man of forty or so, with his rather big nose now hidden by the collar of his cape, in the saddle of the machine, and Chandler, a young chap of twenty-three or four, in the side-car.
“He’s about a mile past Deeptree Corner on the Hazeloak road,” Martin told them.
“On the left-hand side, about a hundred yards before you get to the footpath that runs through Phantom Coppice,” I said over his shoulder.
“Get there as quick as you can,” said Martin. “You stay with the body, Chandler, until Inspector Charlton comes; and you, ’Arwood, come straight back here, so you can take over the station from me. If you’re back in time, I’ll go with the ambulance,