Inspector West Takes Charge Read Free

manuscript!’ Pages were all over the place, but none were torn. ‘The vandals, they’ve trodden on some.’ He bent down to pick up some sheets of paper covered with closely-written matter, while Roger looked about the room, examining the drawers of the desk closely.
    He straightened up.
    ‘Two locks forced by a man who knows his job,’ he said. ‘This wasn’t a burglary by chance, they were after something specific. I wonder who’s out and could do this job,’ he added, as he looked down at the desk. ‘I saw Charlie Clay last week. Abie Fenton but we won’t get anywhere that way.’ He watched as Divisional men came in to check for fingerprints and other clues. Large men moved about the study soft-footed and gentle.
    ‘Better leave them to it,’ Roger thought, and went with Mark and Janet into the living room, where the police had finished.
    ‘Might as well have a drink,’ Mark said. ‘Give that fire a poke, Jan.’ The fire was a dull reddish glow, but sparks flew when Janet thrust with the poker.
    ‘Nothing for me,’ she said.
    ‘Don’t take too much whisky or your head will ache even more,’ Roger said.
    ‘Your head’s all right, I presume,’ Mark said sarcastically. He poured out. ‘What brought you?’
    ‘A cat’
    ‘Kitten,’ corrected Janet ‘And a tom-cat who came home late.’
    ‘What?’
    Janet explained.
    ‘What brought the burglars is more to the point,’ Roger said. ‘One was seen to go, after clouting a local copper who had his suspicions about a car parked outside. There were two, you say?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Did they say what they wanted?’
    ‘ No .’
    ‘Any idea what it was?’
    ‘Not the faintest.’
    ‘You’ve made yourself thoroughly unpopular with Prendergast and his Maisie. All the world knows that you think you have a peculiar prescience about crime, particularly murder, and you will insist on making your suspicions known.’
    ‘You’ve never known Mark get his teeth into a case like this without there being some cause,’ Janet interrupted. ‘And you know that he’s been attacked before for poking his nose in.’
    ‘There’s no obvious connexion between the burglary and the Prendergast case suspicions,’ said Roger. ‘We don’t even know that Mark knows anything that the imaginary murderer of the Prendergasts might want.’
    ‘Had you found anything, Mark?’ asked Janet.
    Lessing rubbed his nose.
    ‘Nothing specific, but I talked too much in a television interview and hinted that I knew a lot,’
    ‘You’ll get yourself in dock for slander.’
    ‘Not a hope. I’ve ideas, mind you, thousands of ideas floating about like clouds of ectoplasm and I put them all down on paper, I left the notes in the right-hand top drawer of my study desk. My God, do you think –’
    They moved together. The police had finished in the study, but the top right-hand drawer of the desk was wide open. The contents had been emptied on to the floor. Roger rummaged through them, picking up a sheaf of papers covered with Mark’s meticulous handwriting. The top sheet was headed: ‘Death by Misadventure –?’
    ‘It’s all there,’ Mark confirmed, a minute or two later. ‘So they didn’t come for that. No connexion with the Prendergast virtuoso proved.’
    ‘Don’t misuse big words,’ said Janet.
    ‘No misuse, sweetie. Murder is a fine art, and three Prendergasts have been murdered. I’m assuming the killer in each case was the same man, woman, or spirit. I had this beautifully-written treatise on the case in that drawer, and my visitors could have read it. The fact that they might have deliberately left the notes behind doesn’t prove anything. Could the Prendergasts killer have lost something he’s anxious to get back?’
    ‘You stolen something?’ demanded Roger.
    ‘No. But the P K might think I have if he’s lost anything of significance.’
    ‘Sheer guess work,’ Roger said. He stifled a yawn. ‘We’ll leave a man on duty outside your door, so that