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

with Mrs Curtis – none of it seems to fall properly into place yet, not even the sun bathing.’
    They parted then, Ferris returning straight home, and Mitchell reaching the same destination by way of his office. And when at last, near morning, he did reach home, full of luxurious thoughts of bath and bed for at least an hour or two, he found his wife waiting for him in the hall, looking very sleepy and clad in her dressing-gown.
    â€˜I heard the phone going,’ she explained, ‘so I got up.’ She had written the message down on the pad. It read, ‘Curtis seen entering Frankland’s, Ealing. Watching house. Owen.’
    Mitchell read it with mixed feelings, very mixed feelings indeed. Mrs Mitchell said,
    â€˜Isn’t Owen that good-looking, nice-spoken young man who was here a week or two ago?’
    â€˜Good-looking and nice-spoken?’ repeated Mitchell bitterly. ‘Is that the way to describe a man who turns in a message like this to a senior officer who hasn’t been near his bed for twenty-four hours or so? Well, anyhow, it’s one on Ferris, too. I can smash up his beauty sleep.’
    He took down the receiver and proceeded to do so, and, though not very hopefully, Mrs Mitchell suggested that he should ring up someone else to accompany Ferris, so that he himself would not need to go. But the Superintendent shook his head. The case had taken hold of him, there was still vivid in his memory that last look the murdered woman had given him; he would not even wait for a cup of tea, though some was ready for him in a vacuum flask.
    â€˜Had some and some biscuits at the office,’ he explained. ‘I must hurry off; can’t risk letting Ferris get there first.’
    Ferris was there first all the same, but, as instructed, he waited till Mitchell arrived. Together they went up to the door and knocked. Sybil answered their summons and hardly looked startled when she saw who it was.
    â€˜Oh, it’s you again,’ she said.
    â€˜Mr Curtis is here, isn’t he?’ Mitchell asked.
    â€˜Tell them to come in,’ a voice called.
    Sybil stood aside and the two men walked down the passage into the drawing-room. In it was standing a tall, strongly-built man, with fair hair and eyes and regular, well-cut features. At the moment, however, there was a wild distressed look about him. He was unshaven, with bloodshot eyes, his clothing tumbled and disarranged, one trouser leg showing a gaping tear over the knee. He said to them,
    â€˜You are police? I’ve only just heard about – about –’ He paused and did not complete the sentence. He said again, ‘I’ve only just heard... Sybil rang me up.’
    Sybil had followed them into the room.
    â€˜I told him to come here,’ she said. ‘I felt I couldn’t tell him on the phone.... I said he must come here.’
    â€˜Mr Curtis rang you up first, then, I suppose?’ Mitchell asked.
    â€˜Oh, no,’ she replied, ‘I had been ringing up the flat all night, and as soon as I got an answer I said he must come here, so I could tell him what had happened.... I couldn’t on the phone.’
    â€˜Sybil told me the flat was being watched,’ Curtis explained, ‘and I saw fellows in the street – your chaps, I suppose, or newspaper men. So I got out by the fire escape at the back. It leads down into the yard, but near the bottom you can just grab a tree in the garden at the back and swing down there and out into the street behind. But I knew before I got here, for I bought a paper on the way.’
    In fact, a copy of that morning’s issue of the Announcer was lying on the floor. Mitchell noticed that on the front page was conspicuous a photograph of Mrs Curtis.
    â€˜Where have you been all night, Mr Curtis?’ Mitchell asked.
    â€˜In the flat at Chelsea,’ he answered moodily.
    â€˜We got no answer when we knocked,’ Mitchell remarked.
    â€˜I