A Murder is Arranged Read Free Page A

over her evening dress: the murderer had apparently stolen the coat.”
    â€œH’m! Then that fur coat may be a clue to her murderer.”
    â€œYes sir, if it can be found, but Mr Vernon tells me that according to the maid it bore no distinguishing mark by which it could be identified; it had not even the name of the maker; the maid is positive about that because she had examined it carefully.”
    â€œHad Mr Forge nothing to tell you about the woman’s friends or relations in France or in this country?”
    â€œNothing at all, sir. Mr Vernon has already written to the police judiciaire in Paris asking for full enquiry to be made about her, telling them the date when she was staying at the Hotel Terminus St Lazare. A search of her papers produced nothing of interest to the police.”
    â€œYou say in your report that no trace of the bullet could be found in Crooked Lane. Were there any signs of a car having passed through?”
    â€œYes sir. I have been with Mr Vernon to the spot in Crooked Lane where the body was found and in spite of the ground being lightly frozen I could distinctly trace the wheel tracks of a light car which had broken through the frozen crust of mud. There is a gateway into a field a few yards from the spot and I could trace tracks of the car in the manoeuvre of turning in that gateway. There were no tracks nearer the house, but on the other side of the gate there were double tracks: the car must have returned in the direction from which it came. Since writing my report I have made enquiries at one or two cottages at the end of the lane. One woman said that she had heard a car passing in the direction of Crooked Lane and had seen through her window the glare of headlights as it returned.”
    â€œYou say that one of the guests at Scudamore Hall had left his car in a shed and not in the proper garage. Have you enquired the reason for this?”
    â€œNo sir, not yet. I was waiting until after the inquest. That car is the one that I mentioned in my report as being suspected of having knocked down and gravely injured a woman.”
    â€œI see. Well, you will attend the inquest this afternoon and let me hear the result as soon as possible.”
    â€œVery good, sir.”

Chapter Two
    T HE BREAKFAST TABLE at Scudamore Hall was set with only three places when the gong rang and the host, Walter Forge, struck a serio-comic attitude on entering the room and finding only Huskisson and Oborn present.
    â€œGood Lord!” he said. “Is this what we’re reduced to—three hungry men and no ladies? I hope that you have appetites; I’m as hungry as a hawk. What have we here?” he went on, going to the side table where four or five dishes were sputtering over spirit lamps. “The rule of the house is that everybody helps himself. Come along, you two, and make your choice.”
    When they had taken their seats Forge tried to lighten the gloom of his two guests by forced gaiety.
    â€œThis inquest this afternoon is the devil. I’ve never attended one before and I hear that the coroner is a grim bloke with a mouth set like a steel trap. I dunno what sort of figure I shall cut in a witness box. Have they summoned both of you?”
    â€œOnly me,” said Huskisson; “I suppose because I was the last person in the house party to see her alive—poor girl.” 
    â€œAnd I because she was staying in my house, I suppose. You’ve not had a summons?” he asked, turning to Oborn.
    â€œNo, thank God! And that’s why I’m going to attack these sausages with an unimpaired appetite.”
    â€œYour turn will come when you’re had before the beak for knocking down that woman,” said Huskisson sourly.
    â€œI never knocked her down,” said Oborn in his pleasant voice. He was an upstanding and rather good-looking man in the early forties; well dressed, well groomed and easy mannered.
    â€œFunny,” said