Waiting for Orders by Eric Ambler Read Free Book Online Page B

o’clock. Mrs Fallon had not kept the appointment, and later, when attempts to trace her movements through her friends had failed, the police had been informed.
    She had not been seen again until eight days later, when her body was found by a coastguard.
    Evidence of identification was given by her doctor and her dentist. The post-mortem had revealed the cause of death as being shock following a fracture of the skull. The fracture could have been caused by violent contact with any blunt, hard surface. It would have been consistent with a fall from a high cliff. She had not entered the water until several hours after death. The state of decomposition suggested that she had probably died on the date of her disappearance. Her doctor added that she had suffered from a cardiac disturbance and was liable to spells of dizziness.
    A child, Annie Smith, had given evidence of the finding, on the seventh of the month, of a heart-shaped pinchbeck locket at the foot of Sea Head Cliff, a local beauty spot within a few minutes’ walk of South Square.
    Mrs Barrington had identified the locket as having belonged to her aunt. Her aunt, who had attached great sentimental value to the locket, had always worn it. Her aunt had been in the habit of sitting on the seat on the cliff during the afternoon. She had not, however, done so for several days prior to her disappearance as she had had a cold.
    The coroner, summing up, had said that there seemed very little doubt that the deceased had, after she had left her niece on the afternoon of the fourth, changed her mind about visiting her friends and walked up the hill to the cliff. Then, fatigued by the walk after her recent illness, she had had an attack of giddiness and fallen to her death on the beach below. High tide had been at six o’clock. Her body must have lain on the beach until ultimately it had been carried out to sea.
    A verdict of ‘Accidental Death’ had been returned, the jury adding a rider to the effect that the cliff should be fenced.
    Mercer looked up. ‘Well, Doctor?’
    ‘Mrs Fallon,’ said Dr Czissar decisively, ‘was, I think, murdered.’
    Mercer sighed and leaned back in his chair.
    ‘Sergeant,’ he said, ‘get me the file on the Fallon case, will you?’ He smiled wearily at the Doctor. ‘You see, Doctor, we are not so stupid. A rich woman meets with an accident. Her niece, who lives in her house, inherits. The niece’s husband, who also lives in the house, happens to be in financial difficulties in his business. The Chief Constable of Wessex thought it advisable to ask us to look into the matter. Ah, thank you, Sergeant. Here we are, Doctor. All open and above board. The niece first.
    ‘She spent the afternoon as she says she did. Car-park and cinema attendants both confirm that she spent the afternoon at Seabourne. She arrived home at seven, having waited for half an hour in South Square and spent ten minutes or so telephoning her aunt’s friends. Barrington returned home soon afterwards. He had left at two thirty to keep a business appointment in Haywick – that’s fourteen miles farther west along the coast – at three. He kept the appointment, and several others that he had made in the Haywick district for that afternoon. Anyway, no murderer in his senses would try to push anybody off the cliff. There’s a coastguard station a quarter of a mile away. He would be too scared of being seen. Satisfied, Doctor?’
    Dr Czissar’s thin smile had reappeared. He nodded. ‘Oh, yes. Quite satisfied. She was undoubtedly murdered. Were the servants at the Grange questioned?’
    Mercer swallowed hard. ‘Naturally.’
    ‘And did any of them report any trouble with the heating arrangements on the night of Mrs Fallon’s disappearance?’
    Mercer restrained himself with an effort. He turned slowly to Inspector Denton. ‘Well, Inspector? You went down to Seahurst, didn’t you? Can you answer the Doctor’s question? By the way,’ he added perfunctorily, ‘this