“’Ere, make way there! Stand back, will you? What’s up ’ere?” he began with pompous authority. “Good Lord! Why, it’s murder!”
“It can’t be—how can it?” sobbed poor Mrs. Cave, whose nerve had given way at last. “Why, there wasn’t a soul anywhere near her!”
“Do you know who she is?” demanded the officer, bending over the corpse, but not touching it. The woman was dead, not a doubt of that. It was best to leave her as she was till the doctor arrived.
A ghastly object she looked lying huddled there, her head still shrouded in the blue motor veil, now horribly drenched and bedabbled. It had been flung back from her face—probably she had raised it herself when she entered the booth a few short minutes before—and her naturally handsome features were distorted to an expression of fear and horror, the dark eyes half open, the lips drawn back showing the white, even teeth. There was no doubt as to the cause of death, for under her left ear was plainly visible the still-welling wound—a clean stab less than half an inch broad that had completely severed the jugular vein.
“I never saw her before,” cried Mrs. Cave, wringing her hands helplessly. “She just came in to telephone, and when she went into the booth several people came in and we were busy for a few minutes, and I never thought a word about her till we found her—Jessie and I—like that! She must have done it herself—and in our shop, too! Oh, whatever shall we do!”
At the moment the obvious thing to be done was to clear the shop and summon the local doctor and the district police inspector, who arrived simultaneously a few minutes later.
The woman had been murdered, not a doubt of that, for it was impossible that such a wound could have been self-inflicted. It was extraordinarily deep, penetrating nearly three inches, and causing practically instantaneous death; while no weapon whatever was discovered nor anything that, at the moment, disclosed the identity of the victim.
One fact was established at once: that she had been partially disguised, for the white hair which Mrs. Cave had noticed proved to be a wig—what hairdressers describe as a “transformation”—adjusted over the natural hair, silky, luxuriant dark tresses closely coiled about the shapely head. Her age was judged by the doctor to be about five-and-twenty, and she was a fine and handsome young woman, presumably wealthy also. Certainly her white, well-shaped, beautifully kept hands had had no acquaintance with work of any kind, and the rings on the slender fingers were extremely valuable, among them a wedding ring. On the floor of the booth was found her gold purse, containing a sum of four pounds odd in notes and silver.
But of the murderer there was no trace whatever, except, indeed, a wet and bloodstained dishcloth lying in the sink of a little scullery place behind the shop. The house was originally a private one, and the whole of the ground floor had been converted into business premises. The Cave’s kitchen and living-room were on the first floor, the stairs going up just inside the door leading into the shop at the back, beside the telephone booth. At the foot of the staircase was a private door opening on to a side street, and beyond it the scullery and a fairly long garden, with a door at the end through which also the side street could be gained. This door had bolts top and bottom, but they were now drawn back, though the door itself was closed.
“Is this door always kept open like this?” asked the inspector of little Mrs. Cave, who, though still piteously agitated, followed him and managed to answer his many questions promptly and intelligibly.