The Silk Stocking Murders Read Online Free Page B

produced, in a haphazard way, the most important point she had yet contributed.
    “All I can say,” said Miss Carruthers, “is that her name may have been Janet, or she might have had a friend called Janet, or something like that.”
    “Ah!” said Roger, keeping his composure. “And how do you know that?”
    “It’s in a prayer-book of hers. I only came across it the other day. Would you like to see it?”
    “I would,” said Roger.
    Obligingly Miss Carruthers ran off to fetch it. Returning, she opened the book at the fly-leaf and handed it to Roger. He read: “To my dear Janet, on her Confirmation, 14th March, 1920. ‘Blessed are the pure in heart.’” The writing was small and crabbed.
    “I see,” Roger said, and took a later opportunity of slipping the book into his pocket. Miss Carruthers had definitely established the main point, at any rate.
    He directed his questions elsewhere. Like Miss Carruthers, Roger had been struck with the idea that there might be a man behind things. He dredged assiduously in his informant’s mind for any clue as to his possible identity. But here Miss Carruthers was unable to help. Uny, it appeared, hadn’t cared for boys. She never went out with one alone, and would seldom consent to make up a foursome. She said frankly that boys bored her stiff. So far as Miss Carruthers knew, not only had she no particular boy, but not even any gentlemen-friends.
    “Humph!” said Roger, abandoning that line of enquiry. They sat and smoked in silence for a moment.
    “If you wanted to commit suicide, Miss Carruthers,” Roger remarked abruptly, “would you hang yourself?”
    Miss Carruthers shuddered delicately. “I would
not.
It’s the very last way I’d do it.”
    “Then why did Miss Ransome?”
    “Perhaps she didn’t realise what she’d look like,” suggested Miss Carruthers, quite seriously.
    “Humph!” said Roger, and they smoked again.
    “And with one of the stockings she was wearing,” mused Miss Carruthers. “Funny, wasn’t it?”
    Roger sat up. “What’s that? One of the stockings she was actually wearing?”
    “Yes. Didn’t you know?”
    “No, I didn’t see that mentioned’. Do you mean,” asked Roger incredulously, “that she actually took off one of the stockings she was wearing at the time, and hanged herself with it?”
    Miss Carruthers nodded. “That’s right. A stocking on one leg, she had, and the other bare. I thought it was funny at the time. On that very door, it was; and you can still see the screw-mark the other side. The screw I took out, of course. I couldn’t have borne to look at it every time I came into the room.”
    “What screw?” asked Roger, at sea.
    “Why, the screw on the other side of the door, that she fastened the loop to.”
    “I don’t know anything about this. I took it for granted that she’d done it on a clothes’-hook, or something like that.”
    “Well, I wondered about that,” said Miss Carruthers, “but I expect it was because the hook in the bedroom was too low. And a stocking’d give a good bit, wouldn’t it?”
    Roger was already out of his chair and examining the door. “Tell me exactly how you found her, will you?” he said.
    With many shudders, some of which may have been quite real, Miss Carruthers did so. Janet, it appeared, had been hanging on the inside of the sitting-room door from a small hook on the other side, which had been screwed in at the right angle to withstand the strain. The stocking round her neck had been knotted together tightly at the extreme ends. As far as one could gather, she must have placed it like that loosely round her neck, then twisted the slack two or three times, and slipped a tiny loop on to the hook on the further side of the door, over the top. She had been standing on a chair to do this, and she must have kicked the chair violently away when her preparations were complete, with such force as to slam the door to, leaving herself suspended by the little hook that