“I'll join you there,” Giles said.
“Good; I hoped you would. We may want you,” replied Hannasyde.
Roger Vereker's flat was in a new block erected between Queen's Gate and Exhibition Road. Giles Carrington arrived there shortly behind the Superintendent, and was admitted to Roger's flat on the second floor by the plain-clothes man stationed at the door. In the hall of the flat Sergeant Hemingway was interrogating a frightened housemaid, who explained, between sobs, that she had come up to "do" the flat at seven o'clock that morning, and had found the poor gentleman dead in his chair. She did not suppose she would ever recover from the shock.
The Sergeant nodded to Giles. “Good-morning, sir. You'll find the Superintendent in there,” he said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the sitting-room.
Nothing had been touched there as yet, and the first thing that met Giles's eyes as he entered the room was the figure of Roger Vereker, seated in a chair turned a little away from his desk. He had fallen forward; his head rested on the edge of the desk, and his right arm hung loosely down to the ground. An automatic pistol lay on the floor just under his hand, and there was an ugly wound in his right temple, from which the blood had run down his face and arm, to form a congealing pool on the carpet.
The Superintendent was listening to what a dapper Inspector had to say, but he looked round as Giles entered, and smiled. “Good man. I hope you don't mind; we'll have it taken away in a minute.”
“I can put up with it,” Giles said rather shortly, his frowning eyes on Roger's body.
The Superintendent said: “You're quick. I've only just arrived myself. I'm afraid he's been dead some hours.” He turned back to the Inspector, and nodded to him to continue.
The Inspector had not much to tell. A maidservant, whose duty it was to sweep and dust the flat before breakfast, had entered at seven o'clock, using a pass-key, and had been surprised to find the hall light still on. She had switched it off, concluding that it had been forgotten overnight, and had then noticed a streak of light under the sitting-room door. She had opened the door and had found the room lit by electricity, all the curtains drawn, the ashes of a dead fire in the grate, and Roger Vereker dead in his chair. She had let fall her dustpan and brushes, and rushed screaming from the flat, downstairs, to sob out her discovery to the hall-porter.
The porter's first action had been to go upstairs and see for himself, but one glance had been enough to satisfy him that this was a case for the police, and before notifying the manager of the flats, who occupied a suite on the ground floor, he had rung up the police-station.