The case with nine solutions

by J. J. Connington

The briefest examination showed that the victim was beyond help.

“We might try artificial respiration, but it would really be simply time lost. She's been strangled pretty efficiently.”

Sir Clinton's face had grown dark as he bent over the body, but his voice betrayed nothing of his feelings.

“Then you'd better go up and look after that girl upstairs, doctor. She's evidently in a bad way. I'll attend to things here.”

Dr. Ringwood mechanically switched on the light of the next flight in the stairs and then experienced a sort of subconscious surprise to find it in action.

“I thought the fuse had gone,” he explained involuntarily, as he hurried up the stairs.

Left to himself, Sir Clinton turned his flash-lamp upwards on to the functionless electric light bracket above the landing and saw, as he had expected, that the bulb had been removed from the socket. A very short search revealed the lamp itself lying on the carpet. The Chief Constable picked it up gingerly and examined it minutely with his pocket-light; but his scrutiny merely proved that the glass was unmarked by any recent finger-prints. He put it carefully aside, entered the lighted bedroom, and secured a fresh bulb from one of the lamp-sockets there.

With this he returned to the landing and glanced round in search of something on which to stand, so that he could put the new bulb in the empty socket. The only available piece of furniture was a small table untidily covered with a cloth, which stood in one corner of the landing. Sir Clinton stepped across to it and inspected it minutely.

“Somebody's been standing on that,” he noted. “But the traces are just about nil. The cloth's thick enough to have saved the table-top from any marks of his boot-nails.”

Leaving the table untouched, he re-entered the room he had already visited and secured another small table, by means of which he was able to climb up and fix the new bulb in the empty socket over the landing. It refused to light, however, and he had to go to the foot of the stairs and reverse the switch before the current came on.