Death Among the Sunbathers by E.R. Punshon Page A

the house by now, and Sybil looked very much alarmed.
    â€˜Oh, a burglar,’ she said. ‘Oh, Maurice, you won’t have him any more, will you? Mr Hunter ought to be warned, too.’
    â€˜If he’s earning an honest living...’ Mitchell protested mildly. ‘Does Mr Hunter employ him?’ he added to Keene.
    It appeared that this Bobs-the-Boy was sometimes employed by Mr Hunter at the fur warehouse as an odd job man. He had also recommended him to Keene, who occasionally employed him as a porter.
    â€˜I saw him there once,’ Sybil explained; ‘he was the most awful-looking man you ever saw, just like a... a murderer,’ she said with a shudder. ‘It was the way he walked, I think – and he was in the garden,’ she added with conviction, ‘for I saw him, and I don’t care what that man of yours outside says. I know what I saw.’
    â€˜So far as the lady’s description goes,’ observed Ferris, ‘I’m quite of her opinion – regular bad lot so far as looks go.’
    â€˜Make a note of it and I’ll sign it as the unanimous opinion of all present,’ said Mitchell cheerfully, ‘but anyhow he’s not in the garden now, and he’s certainly not in the house, and there was no sign of him in the street, and nowhere he could hide – except our own car, and even if Jacks was half asleep no one could get inside without his knowing – that’s certain. So where was he?’
    Sybil still looked dissatisfied, though she had no answer to make, since it was clear that neither in garden, street, nor house, was there any trace of the man she thought she had seen. And when Mitchell and Ferris took their departure, as they soon did – though not before once again the Chelsea flat had been rung up without response – she was a good deal relieved by Mitchell’s promise that the policeman on the beat should be instructed to keep a careful watch and arrest Bobs-the-Boy at sight if he were seen.
    â€˜We can always pull him in if we want to,’ Mitchell explained confidentially as they left, ‘because he is on licence, and that can always be cancelled if thought desirable.’

CHAPTER SIX
A Question of Hair-Dressing
    Hours are long, the work strenuous at Scotland Yard, when a case so complicated and mysterious as the tragedy on the Leadeane Road has to be dealt with. On their departure from Ealing, Inspector Ferris was indeed free to seek his bed; but Superintendent Mitchell had first to return to his office at the Yard, there to make certain that all the machinery at the disposal of the authorities was ready to be set in motion first thing in the morning in an endeavour to discover what had become of Mr John Curtis.
    â€˜And in my humble opinion,’ declared Ferris, ‘it’s odds on, he won’t be found alive. Jealousy, drink, murder, suicide – that’s what it looks like to me, and common enough, too.’
    â€˜It looks a bit like that,’ Mitchell had agreed, ‘but there’s a lot still that’ll bear looking into. We haven’t got this young Keene placed yet, and there’s Mr Hunter, too – is it for nothing his name keeps popping up, or does he come into it somewhere? You notice, too, that the sun-bathing place at Leadeane Mrs Curtis visited before her murder, Hunter and Keene are also apparently in the habit of visiting. Besides, though we knew before that Hunter wanted to get an ex-convict and burglar, with not much ex about it, for his odd job man, we’ve still no idea why. Why should a business man, a wholesale fur merchant, want a convict out on licence in his employ? Something fishy about Mr Hunter, but is there any connexion with Mrs Curtis’s murder? Then there’s the jealous husband–’
    â€˜On the booze,’ interpolated Ferris.
    â€˜On the booze,’ agreed Mitchell, ‘and also an unknown motor-cyclist seen quarrelling