Clubfoot the Avenger Being some further adventures of Desmond Oakwood, of the Secret Service — Context and Discussion

oms of his trousers are wet. But they’re not _splashed_. Look at mine after walking only across from the station!”

He showed a spray of mud stains above the turn-up of his blue serge trousers.

“And see here!” he added. He bent down and undid the dead man’s overcoat. Beneath it jacket and waistcoat were open and the unbuttoned shirt showed a glimpse of clean white skin.

“That’s not the skin of a tramp!” the detective declared.

Again Desmond Okewood gave the young man one of his enigmatic looks. Then he turned to the doctor.

“When a man dies of strychnine poisoning,” he said, “death is preceded by the most appalling convulsions, I believe?”

“Quite right!” the doctor assented, blinking through his _pince-nez_.

“One would, therefore, look for some signs of a struggle,” Desmond continued, “especially in a confined space like this. But see for yourself! The body lies stiffly stretched out, the feet on the floor, the top of the head touching the back of the hood, the shoulders all but clear of the seat. Not even the mat on the floor is disturbed.”

“Very singular, I must admit,” observed the doctor.

“The man who found the body says it was covered up with the rug. Isn’t that right, Jake?”

“Quite right, sir,” chanted the washer. “Covered up ’e wor, ’cept for ’is foot as stuck art!”

“It strikes me as odd,” remarked Desmond mildly, “that, in such ghastly convulsions as strychnine poisoning produces, this man had sufficient presence of mind to arrange the rug neatly over himself”—he paused and looked round his audience—“in such a way as to delay discovery of the body as long as possible!”

“By George!” said O’Malley excitedly—he was young enough to be still enthusiastic—“you mean to say you think he was brought here dead!”

Without replying Desmond turned again to the open door of the car. He took the policeman’s lamp and turned it on the distorted features of the dead man, the jet-black eyebrows and hair.

“Do you see anything on the right ear?” he asked.

“Yes,” O’Malley replied. “Looks like soap or something!”

“It is soap,” he said, “shaving soap,” and opened his hand in the beam of the light. Two or three tiny blond curls and a number of short ends of blond hair lay in the palm.

“I found these down the dead man’s collar,” he explained. “So you see, O’Malley, that your first impression that there is ‘something funny’ about this tramp was perfectly correct!”

But the detective only looked at him in a puzzled way. Desmond pushed him forward to the open door of the car.

“Sniff, man!” he cried.

“Rum sort o’ smell!” said O’Malley, “but I don’t see . . .”

“Hair dye!” exclaimed Desmond.

In a flash the young detective whipped round.

“Then you mean . . .” he began.

“I mean that this dead man is not a tramp, but a person of some social standing; that in life he was not dark and clean-shaven, but fair with a blond moustache or, more probably, a blond beard, and that he did not crawl into this car to die, but was brought here dead in the Lancia. You can assume, if you like, that he shaved himself, dyed his hair, and dressed up as a tramp before taking poison, in order to conceal his identity, but you cannot assume that he killed himself here in this car. Someone brought the body here; therefore there was collusion in his suicide . . . if it _was_ suicide . . .”

O’Malley pushed his hat back from his brow and scratched his head.

“Murder, eh?” he remarked, addressing no one in particular.

A light footstep sounded on the cobbles behind the group, and a voice said:

“You’ve got my car back, then?”

CHAPTER II ENTER MISS VERA SLADE

The two men turned about as a young girl, bareheaded, in a long ermine coat, slipped between them and laid her hand on the door of the Lancia. She was a dainty creature, very fashionably dressed, and little cloth-of-silver shoes peeped out from beneath the fringe of her white satin gown. Before they could stop her, she had pulled the car door wide. She gave one glance inside the cabriolet; then, with a little cry, she reeled back. Desmond Okewood caught her in his arms.

“It’s . . . it’s horrible!” she gasped. “What . . . who is that inside my car?”

A large policeman now lumbered up, panting.