The Z Murders Read Free Page B

that.”
    â€œYes, please do,” said the inspector. “And how about a couple of chairs? There’s no need for us to be uncomfortable.”
    He motioned to the constable inside the room, and a space was cleared where the conversation could proceed with some semblance of privacy. Temperley found himself back in the arm-chair by the fire, while the inspector shoved another opposite him, and sat down in it.
    â€œHow would you like me to do it, inspector?” inquired Temperley, who had been thinking hard during the interim. “In my own words, or will you help me with questions? This is the first murder I’ve ever been present at, so you must excuse me if I’m a bit green.”
    â€œI can see you’re green,” responded the inspector, not unsympathetically, “or you’d be more careful of the words you use.”
    â€œWhat have I said?”
    â€œYou said you were present at the murder.”
    â€œOh, I see.” Temperley paused. “Well, I’ll amend that, if I may. I don’t know whether I was present or not.” A sudden thought came to him. “No—I couldn’t have been!” he exclaimed, impulsively. “That shot—I never heard it.” He paused again. The inspector was watching him closely. “Unless—”
    â€œYes, Mr. Temperley. Unless?”
    â€œUnless I was dozing,” concluded Temperley, rather lamely.
    â€œAnd the shot woke you up?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThe noise was not recorded, however, in your waking dream.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œYou’d have mentioned it, obviously.”
    â€œSo I would. No—I heard nothing—either waking or dreaming.”
    â€œDo you deduce anything from that?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    As Temperley asked the question and found the inspector’s eyes boring into him with a sort of grave persistence, he began to realise the personality he was dealing with for the first time. This was no ordinary official. The inspector was a human being struggling through a queer and difficult world side by side with other human beings, and conscientiously carrying out his particular job. Relentless in his duty, perhaps, but sympathetic behind the relentlessness. So, at least, Temperley judged him at this moment; and, in the strange battle that was to ensue between them, he had many subsequent opportunities of testing this judgment.
    Whether the judgment were right or wrong, the immediate result of it was to lighten a little the load on Temperley’s mind, and to render him more natural. But he did not like the theory towards which the inspector seemed to be working—the theory that the murder had been committed before Temperley had entered the smoking-room…and before the lady had left it…
    â€œWhat I mean is this,” the inspector’s voice broke in on his thoughts. “Some guns bite without barking.”
    â€œA silencer!” exclaimed Temperley, quickly.
    The inspector noted his relief.
    â€œYes, this shot was probably one of the silent kind. But before I advance my theories, let me know your facts, Mr. Temperley. You said you were staying here only a few hours?”
    â€œYes, I’ve just come off the night-train from Preston.”
    â€œFive a.m.?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œGlasgow train, isn’t it?”
    â€œI think so, but I only joined it at Preston.”
    â€œAnd—before that?”
    â€œWindermere.”
    â€œOn a holiday, eh?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI see. Well, and when your train arrived at Euston—”
    â€œWait a minute, inspector. We must go back to Preston.”
    â€œOh?”
    â€œThe dead man and I shared a first-class compartment from Preston.”
    Fresh interest shot into the inspector’s eyes at this information. “You know him, then?” he demanded.
    â€œMerely as a snoring travelling companion,” answered