Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 104, No. 4, August 22, 1936

“Belle popped off suddenly on a trip to Edinburgh. She took Mary with her,” he explained. “My hand? Oh, I wanted to give the youngsters breakfast. All I could find was a can of peaches, and I cut my fingers on it.”

He drove back to Dalton Square and closed the door upon the dreadful contents of the house. He was busy from eleven-thirty to four, on various tasks. He pulled the stained carpets from the stairs. He kindled a fire in the yard and burned various articles. He must leave nothing to chance. And it was while he was working that it occurred to him that in order to give an innocent aspect to matters which might possibly carry the taint of his guilt he must go about his life as if nothing had occurred. He must have in the charwomen as usual, must behave in a natural casual way.

He cleared the bathroom, but locked up two of the bedrooms, and at four went out and asked a patient, Mrs. Hampshire, if she would care to come and clean his house a bit. Mrs. Ruxton had gone to Blackpool and Mary Rogerson, the maid, on a trip. Mrs. Hampshire had never worked for him but she agreed to go back with him.

She found the house in a mess, the carpets up, and straws on the stair. Dragged there by his son Billy, said the doctor, in play.

The bathroom was in a mess, the bath tub a dirty yellow up to six inches of the top.

“Give it a good clean and a scrub. What can you do when the woman of the house does not care?” he said.

Mrs. Hampshire set to work, while the doctor went out. She found some of the carpet from the stair in a roll in the surgery waiting room, and there was a blue suit all bundled up. In the yard were several pieces of carpet all stained and where there had been a fire, half-consumed towels and a shirt, all stained with blood.

Dr. Ruxton brought his children back to get some of their clothes and left Mrs. Hampshire and her husband in the house when he drove away with them. He said they could have the roll of carpet and the blue suit. And so they took these when they locked up the house at nine-thirty. They were careful to put out all the lights.

No eye admittedly saw Dr. Ruxton return to his house nor saw him leave it again in the early morning with an uncanny load. No eye spied upon what he did with his burden. No one noted that the mileage of his car had been increased by two hundred miles. The murderer had won the first battle.

At a few minutes after nine Mrs. Hampshire was amazed to see the doctor arrive dirty and unshaven, in flannel trousers and a raincoat, He who was usually so neat, had come without collar or tie.

“My, how ill you look.” She remarked.

“Do I? My hand pained me all night. By the bye, you took away the carpet and the blue suit. Just occurred to me it wouldn’t look nice to have such a messy thing as that come from my house.”

“Oh that’s all right,” said Mrs. Hampshire. “I can pay for the cleaning.”

Dr. Ruxton hesitated. Early that morning he had realized he had made a blunder but one that could be rectified. But how to get this blood smeared suit away from the woman without exciting her curiosity.

“Well let me cut off the name tag anyway. Let me have the scissors. No, my hand hurts me, you’d better do it.”

“Oh, I’ll do it after you go.”

“No, do it now.”

Mrs. Hampshire cut off the tag and he threw it into the fire. Dr. Ruxton was convinced the suit went to the cleaners. Mrs. Hampshire, whom he asked about it several times to make sure, said it had gone.

When he got back to the house there was Mrs. Oxley waiting to get in. She did not mention she had been there at seven-forty and had been unable to get in. The doctor must have been there during the night or early morning for there was a light burning. She asked where the missus and Mary were and he said they had gone to Edinburgh. They had planned it between them — the two women. She cleaned around all morning, saw the mess in the yard but said nothing, then went home.

Mrs. Hampshire was back in the afternoon. She bothered Dr. Ruxton with her questions about Mrs. Ruxton. Was she in Blackpool or Edinburgh and hadn’t he told someone she was in London. Finally he saw he must win her sympathy and shut her up.

“I will tell you the truth,” he said, “my wife has gone away with another man — left me with the three children. It’s terrible. I can forgive extravagance and she was a wasteful woman, but not infidelity.”

Mrs. Hampshire believed him, for the poor man laid his head on his hands and sobbed.

That night he was alone in the house. He still had work to do. Next morning he went off on an expedition. No one would have known of it, but he upset a cyclist in one of the towns of the Lake district who took his number and gave it to the police. Dr. Ruxton had a passenger with him but the young man whom he was using as a shield and a blind to the object of his trip from home could not have testified in a court. He was two year old Billy Ruxton.