Killer in the Shade Read Free

unplumbed reserves of physical and mental strength, who was able to put the police right when they went wrong. Such thoughts had always been purest fantasy, but now he was involved in a murder case. The dream, the mental game of pretence, had become reality, and all he wished was to be back in his car an hour and a half earlier and driving past that open front door with the light blazing into the garden.
    He was halfway along the garden path to the white-painted gate when he saw her. She was not much more than a shadow etched with light at the edges as she darted from one dark bush to the next. Her shoes made no sound on the lawn.
    One moment she was moving, the next she was not there, but in that moment he had seen her face and read the fear in her eyes.
    He didn’t turn his head. He kept walking as though he had seen nothing, but he had trouble with his breathing,and he tried to convince himself it had been a trick of the poor light, but he knew otherwise. She was there among the bushes. He had only to call to her and she would be discovered, but he knew he couldn’t do that.
    He reached the gate and went to his car, picked up his black bag and returned to the house without looking to right or left, though this time he did see the black letters on the top rail of the gate. They spelled out the name ‘Holly Lawn’. Probably the dark shrubs were holly bushes.
    He walked upstairs, watched by one of the constables, and entered the room where Drury and his assistant were turning out the dead man’s pockets. Someone had removed the knife from the man’s back, and the doctor noticed that the man had a fair moustache. He looked round the room, seeing it clearly for the first time.
    It was a first-floor room overlooking the rear garden. The paintwork was fresh and the curtains clean. There were two divan beds, both covered with candlewickbedspreads of identical design. A padded chair was under the window next to a table with a reading lamp that had not been turned on. There was a hard-backed chair beyond the table with a paperback novel on it. The room had walnut wardrobes, matching in design, besides a large wall cupboard with sliding doors. There were two pictures on opposite walls. Both were still-lifes. In one corner was a wash-basin, with over its mirror some strip lighting and on the narrow glass shelf a bright green-handled toothbrush in a glass tumbler.
    That was all he had time to take in, but his impression was of a comfortable bedroom where a man could settle to a good night’s rest, and then Drury said, ‘Ah, Doctor, there you are. I’ve removed the knife. My impression is that whoever stabbed him knew something of anatomy. The blade reached the heart. Would you confirm that, please, and consider again when it is likely he died?’
    â€˜I’ll have to get some of the clothes off him,’ Cadman said.
    â€˜Of course. Bill, give me a hand withhim. He wasn’t a lightweight, whoever he was.’
    Fifteen minutes later the detectives and the doctor were in agreement about the time of death. It had very likely occurred as the street lights came on. There was also agreement about the ability of the killer, for his knife had reached the heart of the man stabbed in the back.
    â€˜Take a look at it, Doctor,’ Drury said, holding in a towel he had probably taken from the bathroom the bloodstained weapon that had been plunged in the unknown’s body. He put it on the floor and added, ‘Now come downstairs and take a look.’
    Cadman had closed his black case. He picked it up, nodded to Bill Hazard, and followed Drury out of the room and down the stairs and into another room opening off the hall. The door was opposite the door of the room where he had sat earlier. When he drew up inside the room he stood looking to where Drury was frowning at a finely carved cabinet of some well-polished dark wood with a plate-glass top. Under the glass,set out on a ground of blue