Death of an Old Goat by Robert Barnard

been on a couple of cases where husbands had found their wives in bed with another man, and done them in; then there was the man who ran down his mother-in-law when she was coming home from a bridge party, only the old monster didn’t die, and recognized the car; and of course there had been several knife fights after the pubs closed. All these had been beautifully clear-cut. Royle knew, instinctively, that this case was going to be different.
    â€˜Well, what have you done?’ he said to the two sergeants, who were watching him with dogged devotion, or something, in their eyes.
    â€˜Well, nothing really, sir. We were rather waiting for you . . .’
    â€˜Christ, you’ll be wanting me to put you on the potty next.’
    â€˜To tell you the truth, sir,’ said Sergeant Brady slowly, ‘we weren’t quite sure what to do.’
    They watched him closely. To tell the truth, nor was Inspector Royle sure what to do. One thing was clear. His experience was not likely to come in handy in this case — any more than his usual methods were likely to be useful. He tried to cast his mind back to all those television serials, those Perry Masons and those Mannixes , watched in a haze of beer and post-prandial somnolence.
    â€˜Get on to the station,’ he said finally. ‘We’ll want a doctor and a fingerprint man.’
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    Three hours later Royle decided that, surprisingly, they were making progress. He was wondering, in fact, if he might not cut a figure in the national press, perhaps be asked to write a short article for one of the Sundays. True, there had been no fingerprints in the room (devilish cunning of the murderer, that, Royle thought) except those of the victim himself and the cleaning-lady. But he thought he knew how the killer had got in, and that was something.
    The motel backed on to a vacant block, where the council was proposing to erect a tourist office — happily oblivious to the fact that tourists only went where there was something to see. The bathroom of Professor Belville-Smith’s room looked out on to this block, and had a long, fairly low window, which it would be easy enough to climb into and out of. Some traces of dirt had also been found on the sill. Now this last piece of evidence, which Inspector Royle was particularly proud of, was not exactly conclusive, since the cleanliness of the Yarumba Motel was only of the obvious and superficial kind which is nowhere near godliness, but still it indicated a probability. He could make a good deal of it when he reported to his superiors. Now all that remained to do, he reflected with considerable self-satisfaction, was to find out who it was who hadclimbed in and out. That was the rub. If any of the police who should have been patrolling the town had noticed anything suspicious of that sort, word would surely have got to him by now. Anyhow he happened to know they had been occupied with a darts marathon at the station, for he had seen the scores all over the walls of the games room when he reported for duty that morning. When they really got involved in something big they tended to forget entirely that they were supposed to be on patrol.
    He decided to go and talk to the girl in reception. This was just what she had hoped, since she was meeting her boy-friend that night, and wanted to have all the latest details. She had been following every sign of activity across the courtyard with great interest from her window, but when Royle banged into her office she was sitting decorously at her desk answering correspondence. She had decided that brisk efficiency was the best way of meeting him.
    â€˜Oh, Inspector,’ she said. ‘You’ve finished now, I hope.’
    â€˜Not nearly, miss, not nearly,’ said Royle impressively, sizing her up casually, but not in the light of a suspect.
    â€˜That’s most inconvenient,’ said the girl. ‘Now we won’t be able