John Rhode – Mystery at Olympia (страница 3)

‘Stand back,’ said Oldland. ‘That is, if you can manage it.’ And, by some miracle, the human mass obeyed him. Compressed to its utmost limit though it had appeared, it contrived to extend that compression a stage farther, until Oldland found room to drop on one knee beside the motionless form.

The salesman, thus interrupted in the full flood of his demonstration, merely shrugged his shoulders. A man had fainted! There was no novelty about that. He was the third, or was it the fourth, since the show had opened. It wasn’t everybody who could stand a crowd like that assembled round Stand 1001. The salesman picked up the telephone which stood beside him, and rang up the first-aid post stationed in the building. ‘Man fainted on Stand 1001,’ he said languidly. ‘Better send along the stretcher.’

Meanwhile Oldland had deftly loosened the unconscious man’s collar. He put his hand over his heart and his face hardened. He straightened himself and faced the salesman. ‘We must get him out of this, quick,’ he said.

‘All right, doctor,’ replied the salesman. ‘I’ve sent for the stretcher. It’ll be along in a minute.’

Oldland dropped down once more by his patient, and began to massage the region of the heart. He was thus engaged when the stretcher-bearers arrived, having driven their way through the compact mass of humanity. The old man was lifted on to the stretcher, and borne away to the first-aid post, Oldland walking beside him.

As the stretcher was placed upon a table, Oldland resumed his ministrations. The first-aid post was well equipped. He called for a hypodermic syringe, and prepared a powerful injection, which he administered. Then he resumed his massage. While he was thus engaged a police sergeant drifted into the room, asked a few questions of the stretcher-bearers in a low voice, then stood watching the doctor.

After a few minutes, Oldland shook his head fiercely. As his hands dropped to his side, he looked up and met the sergeant’s questioning glance. ‘The man’s dead,’ he said curtly. ‘His heart had stopped beating before I got to him. No chance of starting it again now, I’m afraid.’

The sergeant took out his notebook and pencil. ‘What was the cause of death, sir?’ he asked.

‘Can’t tell you that,’ Oldland replied. ‘The mode of dying was syncope, if that means anything to you. The coroner will order a post-mortem, I suppose.’

The sergeant endeavoured to write the word syncope, and failed after one or two attempts. ‘I must ask you for your name and address, sir,’ he said.

Oldland gave the required information. ‘I should have thought that this poor chap’s name and address were rather more important,’ he added slowly.

‘I’m coming to that, sir,’ the sergeant replied. He approached the corpse, and very gingerly inserted his hand into the breast pocket of the coat. From this he extracted a bulging wallet, in which were a roll of notes and a few visiting cards. These were all similar, and were engraved ‘Mr Nahum Pershore, Firlands, Weybridge.’ The sergeant made a note of this, then pocketed the wallet. He glanced at the body irresolutely, then turned once more to Oldland. ‘Is there anything more to be done, sir?’ he asked.

‘Not so far as I’m concerned,’ Oldland replied. ‘I can’t bring back the dead to life. The rest’s your job, I fancy.’

The sergeant still seemed dissatisfied. ‘You couldn’t give me a hint of what he died of, sir?’ he asked.

‘No, I can’t. There are no visible signs of violence, if that’s what you’re getting at. The man just died. You’ll probably find that he was suffering from fatty degeneration of the heart, or something. The best thing you can do is to get him along to the mortuary, and turn him over to the police surgeon.’

Oldland waited until the ambulance arrived, and then left the building. Both the crowd and the internal intricacies of motor cars had temporarily lost interest for him. He went outside and regained his waiting car. Seeing his chauffeur’s inquiring but very respectful glance, he shook his head. ‘Not today,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back another time, perhaps.’

He drove homewards, frowning over the sudden death of Mr Nahum Pershore. Professionally the incident was without significance for him. No doubt the post-mortem would reveal some morbid condition which would account for it. But it was an infernal nuisance, just the same. He would have to attend the inquest, and that would mean a loss of valuable time. Oh, well, it couldn’t be helped!

His thoughts turned from Mr Pershore to the behaviour of the car. She certainly did run wonderfully smoothly. It would be a shame to get rid of her. If she were repainted and touched up here and there, she could be made to last another year at least. Yes, that was what he would do.

So the incident of Mr Pershore’s death was not without its economic consequences. It reduced by one the ranks of the Potential Buyers. By two, possibly, since Mr Nahum Pershore might have intended to buy a car. But, upon the activities of the show itself, it had no effect whatever. Mr Pershore’s body having been decently removed from Stand 1001, the salesman resumed his interrupted explanation. ‘This, which is known as the pressure valve, is contained in a housing on the right side of the pump. Its function is …’

His voice droned on, inaudible, except to the intent group facing him, above the subdued roar with which the voices of the crowd filled the building. And up and down the alleys between the stands flowed the human stream, now pursuing a slow and steady course, now eddying about some exhibit of special interest. The incident of Mr Pershore’s collapse had been witnessed by perhaps a couple of dozen people, none of whom knew that it had been fatal. So trivial a matter was scarcely a subject for comment. It may be that two acquaintances met by chance at one of the refreshment bars. ‘Hallo, Jimmy, what’s yours?’ ‘Mine’s a double whisky and a splash. Seen that new contraption of the Comet people’s yet?’ ‘Yes, I’ve just been having a look at it. Terrible crush on their stand. An old boy fainted just as I got there.’ ‘I don’t wonder. Felt like fainting myself when I was there this morning. Well, here’s luck!’ And the subject of Mr Pershore would be forgotten.

That evening, soon after ten, when the last of the public had been shepherded from the hall, and the exhausted staffs were clearing up for the night, the sales manager of the Solent Motor Car Company was fussing about his stand. He was not in the best of tempers. Solent and Comet cars were in much the same class, and an intense rivalry had always existed between them.

As it happened, the Solent people had made very few alterations to their models for this particular year, with the result that there was nothing startlingly novel exhibited on their stand. Since novelty is what attracts a very large percentage of visitors to the show, this had resulted in comparatively few inquiries. And yet the Solent stand, number 1276, was very favourably placed to attract notice. It was close to the entrance, almost the first thing to catch the visitor’s eyes as he entered the building.

The sales manager had a definite sense of grievance against his directors. If they hadn’t been such a sleepy lot of fatheads, they would have seen to it that the works got out something new, and not left it to the Comet people to steal a march on them like this. How the devil could a fellow be expected to sell cars to people if he had nothing out-of-the-way to show them?

He happened to glance through the window of a resplendent Solent saloon, and something lying on the floor at the back caught his eye. He opened the door, and picked up a mushroom-shaped piece of steel. ‘What the devil’s this?’ he exclaimed, frowning at the unfamiliar object.

One of his assistants, standing near by, answered him. ‘It looks like one of the exhibits from the Comet stand,’ he said.

‘What? One of those people’s ridiculous gadgets? How do you know that?’

The assistant, realising that he had given himself away, looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, I just took a stroll round their stand in my lunch hour,’ he replied sheepishly.

‘Oh, you did, did you? And I suppose you’ve been recommending people who come here to look at our stuff to follow your example. And how did this damn thing get on our stand? Perhaps you brought it back with you as a souvenir?’

The assistant attempted the mild answer which turneth away wrath. ‘I didn’t do that. But I’ll take it back to the Comet stand, if you like.’

‘Take it back? Let them come and fetch it if they want to. I’d have you know that employees of our firm aren’t paid to run errands for the Comet people. And see that you’re here sharp at nine tomorrow morning. I want some alterations made on this stand before the show opens.’ And, without vouchsafing a good-night, the sales manager departed.

His assistant watched him leave the hall. Then, since he had a friend in the Comet firm, he picked up the pressure valve, for such it was, and carried it to stand 1001. There he encountered the demonstrator who had been holding forth when Mr Pershore collapsed. ‘Hallo, George, this is a bit of your property, isn’t it?’ he said.