The Glimpses of the Moon by Edmund Crispin

his groin.
    Having examined this composition impassively for some seconds, Prance made a provisional identification from the clothes, and then went off to the nearest telephone box to ring Constable Luckraft’s cottage in Burraford. The identification had to be provisional, since the head, though like the limbs it had been severed from the trunk, was nowhere visible.
    Luckraft got out his motor-cycle and came at once. He stoodguard while Prance trudged once again to the telephone box, this time to notify the police station in Glazebridge. Luckraft dealt with the Busts, listened to their story, promised them that Anna May’s evidence should be heard at an early opportunity, and shooed them off home. He wandered about a bit, and presently, a few yards inside the copse, came on what appeared to be - and indeed was - the weapon with which the murder had been done.
    Detective-Inspector Widger and Detective-Constable Rankine arrived by car. They hadn’t hurried themselves: Prance, in a fit of bucolic mischief-making, had given the Duty Sergeant at Glazebridge full details of the discovery, thereby ensuring that his call would be treated as an egregiously puerile hoax. Now Widger stared at the remains dazedly while questioning Luckraft, who in due course conducted the party into the copse to look at the heavy wrench which lay there, its business end slightly stained with what was presumably Routh’s blood.
    â€˜That’s
not been lying there for weeks on end,’ said Detective-Constable Rankine. ‘You can tell it hasn’t, simply by looking at it.’ No fact or inference, however obvious, really existed for Rankine until he had put it into words.
    Widger said, ‘Let’s hope we can trace the owner.’
    â€˜And
it’s heavy enough to have done the job. One good whack with that, just one, and
pfft,
you’re dead.’
    Luckraft said that he thought the owner of the wrench was probably him, Luckraft.
    â€˜Yours, Luckraft?’ said Widger, flustered. ‘What on earth makes you think that?’
    â€˜It’s missing, sir, from the tool-kit on my bike. I just looked.’
    â€˜Good heavens, man, don’t you keep your tool-kit locked?’
    Luckraft pointed out that the tool-kits on police motor-cycles were not equipped with locks.
    â€˜Well, but how long has it been missing?’
    Luckraft said that the wrench could have been missing for as long as eight days; it was eight days, anyway, since he had had occasion to open the kit. He added that of course he was round and about the district quite a lot, and often had to leave the bike temporarily unattended, for instance when visiting people in their houses.
    â€˜So that what we have here looks very much like a case of premeditation,’ said Rankine. ‘Someone sees this bike - unattended, as has been remarked. He says to himself, “Now, this bike has a tool-kit, and in the tool-kit will be a stout wrench.” He glances around him to find out if he is observed.’
    â€˜If it is mine, sir,’ said Luckraft, ‘there’ll be my initials scratched on the other side.’
    â€˜I see. May I ask if you always scratch your initials on police property?’
    â€˜Yes, sir. Always. Because otherwise it gets nicked. By my fellow-officers, I mean.’
    â€˜I see. Well, we’re not going to touch the wrench yet awhile. You yourself haven’t touched it, I hope?’
    â€˜Certainly not, sir.’
    â€˜Bringing us back full circle,’ said Rankine, ‘to the central puzzle in this affair: where is the deceased’s head? Several possibilities suggest themselves. The head may be buried somewhere quite close by. Or it may have been taken away. Or it -’
    â€˜Be quiet, Rankine,’ said Widger. ‘Get to a telephone and ring County - urgent. And ring Dr Mason - urgent.’ With obvious reluctance Rankine took himself off, on foot, while Widger climbed into the police