Have His Carcase

‘You may say what you like, my lord,’ said Inspector Umpelty, ‘and I don’t mind admitting that the Super is a bit inclined to your way of thinking, but it was suicide for all that, and if I was a sporting man, I wouldn’t mind having a bit on it. There’s no harm done by tracing this fellow Bright, because, if the identification of the razor is correct, that’s who this Alexis must have brought it from, but there’s no doubt in my mind that when the poor chap left his lodgings on Thursday, he never meant to come back. You’ve only got to look at the place. Everything. tidied away, bills all paid up, papers burnt in the grate — you might say he’d regular said good-bye and kissed his hand to everything.’

‘Did he take his latch-key with him?’ asked Wimsey.

‘Yes, he did. But that’s nothing. A man keeps his key in his pocket and he mightn’t think to put it out. But he left pretty well everything else in order. You’d be surprised. Not so much as an envelope, there wasn’t. Must have had a regular old bonfire there. Not a photograph, not a line that would tell you anything about who he was or where became from. Clean sweep of the lot.’

‘No hope of recovering anything from the ashes?’

‘Not a thing. Naturally, Mrs Lefranc — that’s the landlady — had had the grate cleaned out on the Thursday morning, but she told me that everything had been broken down into black finders and dust. And there was a rare old lot of it. I know, because she showed it me: in the dust-bin. There certainly — was nothing there you could have made out with a microscope.’ As you know, my lord, generally these folk aren’t thorough — they leave a few bits half-burnt, maybe, but this chap had gone the right way about it and no mistake. He must have torn’ everything into small scraps first, and burnt it on a hot fire and beaten it into atoms with the poker. “Well,” I said to Mrs Lefranc, “this is a nice set-out, this is!” And so it was, too.’

‘Any books or anything with writing in the fly-leaves?’

‘Just a few novels, with “Paul Alexis” inside, and some with nothing at all, and one or two paper-backed books written in Chinese.’

‘Chinese?”

‘Well, it looked’ like it Russian, maybe. Not in proper letters, anyhow. You can’ see them any time you like but I don’t expect you’ll get much out of them. One or two history-books there was, mostly about Russia and that. But no writing of any kind.’

‘Any money?’ ‘No.’

‘Had he a banking account?’

‘Yes; he had a small account with Lloyds. Matter of a little over three hundred pounds. But he drew the whole lot out three weeks ago.’

‘Did he? Whatever for? It wouldn’t cost him all that to buy a razor.’

‘No, but I said he’d been settling his debts.’ ‘Three hundred pounds worth of them?’

‘I don’t say that. Fact is we can’t trace more than twenty pounds odd. But he may have owed money in lots of places.

As he’s burnt all his papers, you see, it’s a bit difficult to tell. We shall make inquiries, naturally. But I shouldn’t be: surprised if those hundred pounds had gone to some girl or other. There’s that Leila Garland — a hard-boiled little piece if ever there was one. She could tell a lot if she liked, I daresay, but we aren’t allowed to ask anybody any questions these days. If they say they won’t answer, they won’t and there’s an end of it. You can’t force ’em.’

‘Leila Garland — that’s the girl he used to go with?’

‘That’s it, my lord, and from what I can make out she turned Mister Alexis down good and hard. Terrible cut — up he was about it, too, according to her. She’s got an fellow now — sort of friend of Alexis, but a cut above him, as far as I can make out., Sort of dago fellow; leads the orchestra down at the Winter Gardens, and makes a pretty good thing out of it, I fancy. You know the sort, all la-di-dah and snake-skin shoes. Nothing wrong with him, though, as far as that goes. He was quite frank about it, and so was the girl. Alexis introduced, them, and, presently the young woman got the idea that she could do better with the dago than with Alexis. She says Alexis was getting very close with his money, and didn’t seem to have his mind as, much on Miss Leila as he might have. Possibly he had his eye on somebody else all the time and that was where the money went. Anyhow, Leila makes up her mind to give him the push and takes up with the dago, Luis da Soto, instead. Of course there was a scene, and Alexis threatens to make

away with himself — Did he say anything about throat-cutting?’

‘Well, no, he didn’t. Said he’d take poison. But what’s the odds? He said he’d make away with himself and he’s done it, and here we are.’

‘Did you, by any chance, find any poison — you know, sleepy stuff or anything of that sort in his room?’ ‘Not a thing,’ said the Inspector, triumphantly.

‘But Inspector,’ put in Harriet, who had been listening to this conversation in becoming silence, ‘if you think Alexis had another girl in tow, why should he commit suicide when Leila Garland turned him down?’