a casual remark dropped in a Soho restaurant; it ended amid a roar of
publicity that shook England from end to end and crowded even Wimbledon
into the second place. The bare facts of the murder and kidnapping
appeared exclusively that night in a Late Extra edition of the _Evening
Views_. Next morning it sprawled over the Sunday papers with photographs
and full details, actual and imaginary. The idea of two English
girls—the one brutally killed, the other carried off for some end
unthinkably sinister, by a black man—aroused all the passion of horror
and indignation of which the English temperament is capable. Reporters
swarmed down upon Crow’s Beach like locusts—the downs near Shelly Head
were like a fair with motors, bicycles and parties on foot, rushing out
to spend a happy week-end amid surroundings of mystery and bloodshed.
Parker, who with Wimsey had taken rooms at the Green Lion, sat answering
the telephone and receiving the letters and wires which descended upon
him from all sides, with a stalwart policeman posted at the end of the
passage to keep out all intruders.
Wimsey fidgeted about the room, smoking cigarette after cigarette in his
excitement.
“This time we’ve got them,” he said. “They’ve overreached themselves,
thank God!”
“Yes. But have a little patience, old man. We can’t lose them—but we
must have all the facts first.”
“You’re sure those fellows have got Mrs. Forrest safe?”
“Oh, yes. She came back to the flat on Monday night—or so the garage man
says. Our men are shadowing her continually and will let us know the
moment anybody comes to the flat.”
“Monday night!”
“Yes. But that’s no proof in itself. Monday night is quite a usual time
for week-enders to return to Town. Besides, I don’t want to frighten her
till we know whether she’s the principal or merely the accomplice. Look
here, Peter, I’ve had a message from another of our men. He’s been
looking into the finances of Miss Whittaker and Mrs. Forrest. Miss
Whittaker has been drawing out big sums, ever since last December year
in cheques to Self, and these correspond almost exactly, amount for
amount, with sums which Mrs. Forrest has been paying into her own
account. That woman has had a big hold over Miss Whittaker, ever since
old Miss Dawson died. She’s in it up to the neck, Peter.”
“I knew it. She’s been doing the jobs while the Whittaker woman held
down her alibi in Kent. For God’s sake, Charles, make no mistake.
Nobody’s life is safe for a second while either of them is at large.”
“When a woman is wicked and unscrupulous,” said Parker, sententiously,
“she is the most ruthless criminal in the world—fifty times worse than a
man, because she is always so much more single-minded about it.”
“They’re not troubled with sentimentality, that’s why,” said Wimsey,
“and we poor mutts of men stuff ourselves up with the idea that they’re
romantic and emotional. All punk, my son. Damn that ’phone!”
Parker snatched up the receiver.
“Yes—yes—speaking. Good God, you don’t say so. All right. Yes. Yes, of
course you must detain him. I think myself it’s a plant, but he must be
held and questioned. And see that all the papers have it. Tell ’em
you’re sure he’s the man. See? Soak it well into ’em that that’s the
official view. And—wait a moment—I want photographs of the cheque and of
any finger-prints on it. Send ’em down immediately by a special
messenger. It’s genuine, I suppose? The Bank people say it is? Good!
What’s his story? . . . Oh! . . . any envelope?—Destroyed?—Silly devil.
Right. Right. Good-bye.”
He turned to Wimsey with some excitement.
“Hallelujah Dawson walked into Lloyds Bank in Stepney yesterday morning
and presented Mary Whittaker’s cheque for £10,000, drawn on their
Leahampton branch to Bearer, and dated Friday 24th. As the sum was such
a large one and the story of the disappearance was in Friday night’s
paper, they asked him to call again. Meanwhile, they communicated with
Leahampton. When the news of the murder came out yesterday evening, the
Leahampton manager remembered about it and ’phoned the Yard, with the
result that they sent round this morning and had Hallelujah up for a few
inquiries. His story is that the cheque arrived on Saturday morning, all
by itself in an envelope, without a word of explanation. Of course the
old juggins chucked the envelope away, so that we can’t verify his tale
or get a line on the post-mark. Our people thought the whole thing
looked a bit fishy, so Hallelujah is detained pending investigation—in
other words, arrested for murder and conspiracy!”
“Poor old Hallelujah! Charles, this is simply devilish! That innocent,
decent old creature, who couldn’t harm a fly.”
“I know. Well, he’s in for it and will have to go through with it. It’s
all the better for us. Hell’s bells, there’s somebody at the door. Come
in.”
“It’s Dr. Faulkner to see you, sir,” said the constable, putting his
head in.
“Oh, good. Come in, doctor. Have you made your examination?”
“I have, Inspector. Very interesting. You were quite right. I’ll tell
you that much straight away.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Sit down and tell us all about it.”
“I’ll be as brief as possible,” said the doctor. He was a London man,
sent down by Scotland Yard, and accustomed to police work—a lean, grey
badger of a man, business-like and keen-eyed, the direct opposite of the
“tutster” who had annoyed Parker the evening before.
“Well, first of all, the blow on the head had, of course, nothing
whatever to do with the death. You saw yourself that there had been next
to no bleeding. The wound was inflicted some time after death—no doubt
to create the impression of an attack by a gang. Similarly with the cuts
and scratches on the arms. They are the merest camouflage.”
“Exactly. Your colleague—”
“My colleague, as you call him, is a fool,” snorted the doctor. “If
that’s a specimen of his diagnosis, I should think there would be a high
death-rate in Crow’s Beach. That’s by the way. You want the cause of
death?”
“Chloroform?”
“Possibly. I opened the body but found no special symptoms suggestive of
poisoning or anything. I have removed the necessary organs and sent them
to Sir James Lubbock for analysis at your suggestion, but candidly I
expect nothing from that. There was no odour of chloroform on opening
the thorax. Either the time elapsed since the death was too long, as is
very possible, seeing how volatile the stuff is, or the dose was too
small. I found no indications of any heart weakness, so that, to produce
death in a healthy young girl, chloroform would have had to be
administered over a considerable time.”
“Do you think it was administered at all?”
“Yes, I think it was. The burns on the face certainly suggest it.”
“That would also account for the handkerchief found in the car,” said
Wimsey.
“I suppose,” pursued Parker, “that it would require considerable
strength and determination to administer chloroform to a strong young
woman. She would probably resist strenuously.”
“She would,” said the doctor, grimly, “But the odd thing is, she didn’t.
As I said before, all the marks of violence were inflicted post-mortem.”
“Suppose she had been asleep at the time,” suggested Wimsey, “couldn’t
it have been done quietly then?”
“Oh, yes—easily. After a few long breaths of the stuff she would become
semi-conscious and then could be more firmly dealt with. It is quite
possible, I suppose, that she fell asleep in the sunshine, while her
companion wandered off and was kidnapped, and that the kidnappers then
came along and got rid of Miss Findlater.”
“That seems a little unnecessary,” said Parker. “Why come back to her at
all?”
“Do you suggest that they both fell asleep and were both set on and
chloroformed at the same time? It sounds rather unlikely.”
He outlined the history of their suspicions about Mary Whittaker, to
which the doctor listened in horrified amazement.
“What happened,” said Parker, “as we think, is this. We think that for
some reason Miss Whittaker had determined to get rid of this poor girl
who was so devoted to her. She arranged that they should go off for a
picnic and that it should be known where they were going to. Then, when
Vera Findlater was dozing in the sunshine, our theory is that she
murdered her—either with chloroform or—more likely, I fancy—by the same
method that she used upon her other victims, whatever that was. Then she
struck her on the head and produced the other appearances suggestive of
a struggle, and left on the bushes a cap which she had previously
purchased and stained with brilliantine. I am, of course, having the cap
traced. Miss Whittaker is a tall, powerful woman—l don’t think it would
be beyond her strength to inflict that blow on an unresisting body.”
“But how about those footmarks in the wood?”
“I’m coming to that. There are one or two very odd things about them. To
begin with, if this was the work of a secret gang, why should they go
out of their way to pick out the one damp, muddy spot in twenty miles of
country to leave their footprints in, when almost anywhere else they
could have come and gone without leaving any recognisable traces at
all?”
“Good point,” said the doctor. “And I add to that, that they must have
noticed they’d left a cap behind. Why not come back and remove it?”
“Exactly. Then again. Both pairs of shoes left prints entirely free from
the marks left by wear and tear. I mean that there were no signs of the
heels or soles being worn at all, While the rubbers on the larger pair
were obviously just out of the shop. We shall have the photographs here
in a moment, and you will see. Of course, it’s not impossible that both
men should be wearing brand new shoes, but on the whole it’s unlikely.”
“It is,” agreed the doctor.
“And now we come to the most suggestive thing of all. One of the
supposed men had very much bigger feet than the other, from which you
would expect a taller and possibly heavier man with a longer stride. But
on measuring the footprints, what do we find? In all three cases—the big
man, the little man and the woman—we have exactly the same length of
stride. Not only that, but the footprints have sunk into the ground to
precisely the same depth, indicating that all three people were of the
same weight. Now, the other discrepancies might pass, but that is
absolutely beyond the reach of coincidence.”
Dr. Faulkner considered this for a moment.
“You’ve proved your point,” he said at length. “I consider that
absolutely convincing.”
“It struck even Sir Charles Pillington, who is none too bright,” said
Parker. “I had the greatest difficulty in preventing him from blurting
out the extraordinary agreement of the measurements to that _Evening
Views_ man.”
“You think, then, that Miss Whittaker had come provided with these shoes
and produced the tracks herself.”
“Yes, returning each time through the bracken. Cleverly done. She had
made no mistake about superimposing the footprints. It was all worked
out to a nicety—each set over and under the two others, to produce the
impression that three people had been there at the same time. Intensive
study of the works of Mr. Austin Freeman, I should say.”
“And what next?”
“Well, I think we shall find that this Mrs. Forrest, who we think has
been her accomplice all along, had brought her car down—the big car,
that is—and was waiting there for her. Possibly she did the making of
the footprints while Mary Whittaker was staging the assault. Anyhow, she
probably arrived there after Mary Whittaker and Vera Findlater had left
the Austin and departed to the hollow on the downs. When Mary Whittaker
had finished her part of the job, they put the handkerchief and the
magazine called _The Black Mask_ into the Austin and drove off in Mrs.
Forrest’s car. I’m having the movements of the car investigated,
naturally. It’s a dark blue Renault fourseater, with Michelin
balloon-tyres, and the number is X04247. We know that it returned to
Mrs. Forrest’s garage on the Monday night with Mrs. Forrest in it.”
“But where is Miss Whittaker?”
“In hiding somewhere. We shall get her all right. She can’t get money
from her own bank—they’re warned. If Mrs. Forrest tries to get money for
her, she will be followed. So if the worst comes to the worst, we can
starve her out in time with any luck. But we’ve got another clue. There
has been a most determined attempt to throw suspicion on an unfortunate
relative of Miss Whittaker’s—a black Nonconformist parson, with the
remarkable name of Hallelujah Dawson. He has certain pecuniary claims on
Miss Whittaker—not legal claims, but claims which any decent and humane
person should have respected. She didn’t respect them, and the poor old
man might very well have been expected to nurse a grudge against her.
Yesterday morning he tried to cash a Bearer cheque of hers for £10,000,
with a lame-sounding story to the effect that it had arrived by the
first post, without explanation, in an envelope. So, of course, he’s had
to be detained as one of the kidnappers.”
“But that is very clumsy, surely. He’s almost certain to have an alibi.”
“I fancy the story will be that he hired some gangsters to do the job
for him. He belongs to a Mission in Stepney—where that mauve cap came
from—and no doubt there are plenty of tough lads in his neighbourhood.
Of course we shall make close inquiries and publish details broadcast in
all the papers.”
“And then?”
“Well then, I fancy, the idea is that Miss Whittaker will turn up
somewhere in an agitated condition with a story of assault and holding
to ransom made to fit the case. If Cousin Hallelujah has not produced a
satisfactory alibi, we shall learn that he was on the spot directing the
murderers. If he has definitely shown that he wasn’t there, his name
will have been mentioned, or he will have turned up at some time which
the poor dear girl couldn’t exactly ascertain, in some dreadful den to
which she was taken in a place which she won’t be able to identify.”
“What a devilish plot.”
“Yes. Miss Whittaker is a charming young woman. If there’s anything
she’d stop at, I don’t know what it is. And the amiable Mrs. Forrest
appears to be another of the same kidney. Of course, doctor, we’re
taking you into our confidence. You understand that our catching Mary
Whittaker depends on her believing that we’ve swallowed all these false
clues of hers.”
“I’m not a talker,” said the doctor. “Gang you call it, and gang it is,
as far as I’m concerned. And Miss Findlater was hit on the head and died
of it. I only hope my colleague and the Chief Constable will be equally
discreet. I warned them, naturally, after what you said last night.”
“It’s all very well,” said Wimsey, “but what positive evidence have we,
after all, against this woman? A clever defending counsel would tear the
whole thing to rags. The only thing we can absolutely _prove_ her to
have done is the burgling that house on Hampstead Heath and stealing the
coal. The other deaths were returned natural deaths at the inquest. And
as for Miss Findlater—even if we show it to be chloroform—well,
chloroform isn’t difficult stuff to get hold of—it’s not arsenic or
cyanide. And even if there were finger-prints on the spanner—”
“There were not,” said Parker, gloomily. “This girl knows what she’s
about.”
“What did she want to kill Vera Findlater for, anyway?” asked the
doctor, suddenly. “According to you, the girl was the most valuable bit
of evidence she had. She was the one witness who could prove that Miss
Whittaker had an alibi for the other crimes—if they were crimes.”
“She may have found out too much about the connection between Miss
Whittaker and Mrs. Forrest. My impression is that she had served her
turn and become dangerous. What we’re hoping to surprise now is some
communication between Forrest and Whittaker. Once we’ve got that—”
“Humph!” said Dr. Faulkner. He had strolled to the window. “I don’t want
to worry you unduly, but I perceive Sir Charles Pillington in conference
with the Special Correspondent of the _Wire_. The _Yell_ came out with
the gang story all over the front page this morning, and a patriotic
leader about the danger of encouraging coloured aliens. I needn’t remind
you that the _Wire_ would be ready to corrupt the Archangel Gabriel in
order to kill the _Yell’s_ story.”
“Oh, hell!” said Parker, rushing to the window.
“Too late,” said the doctor. “The _Wire_ man has vanished into the post
office. Of course, you can ’phone up and try to stop it.”
Parker did so, and was courteously assured by the editor of the _Wire_
that the story had not reached him, and that if it did, he would bear
Inspector Parker’s instructions in mind.
The editor of the _Wire_ was speaking the exact truth. The story had
been received by the editor of the _Evening Banner_, sister paper to the
_Wire_. In times of crisis, it is sometimes convenient that the left
hand should not know what the right hand does. After all, it was an
exclusive story.
CHAPTER XXII
A Case of Conscience
_“I know thou art religious,_
_And hast a thing within thee called conscience,_
_With twenty popish tricks and ceremonies_
_Which I have seen thee careful to observe.”_
_Titus Andronicus_
Thursday, June 23rd, was the Eve of S. John. The sober green workaday
dress in which the church settles down to her daily duties after the
bridal raptures of Pentecost, had been put away, and the altar was white
and shining once again. Vespers were over in the Lady Chapel at S.
Onesimus—a faint reek of incense hung cloudily under the dim beams of
the roof. A very short acolyte with a very long brass extinguisher
snuffed out the candles, adding the faintly unpleasant yet sanctified
odour of hot wax. The small congregation of elderly ladies rose up
lingeringly from their devotions and slipped away in a series of deep
genuflections. Miss Climpson gathered up a quantity of little manuals,
and groped for her gloves. In doing so, she dropped her office-book. It
fell, annoyingly, behind the long kneeler, scattering as it went a small
pentecostal shower of Easter cards, book-markers, sacred pictures, dried
palms and Ave Marias into the dark corner behind the confessional.
Miss Climpson gave a little exclamation of wrath as she dived after
them—and immediately repented this improper outburst of anger in a
sacred place. “Discipline,” she murmured, retrieving the last lost sheep
from under a hassock, “discipline. I must learn self-control.” She
crammed the papers back into the office-book, grasped her gloves and
handbag, bowed to the Sanctuary, dropped her bag, picked it up this time
in a kind of glow of martyrdom, bustled down the aisle and across the
church to the south door, where the sacristan stood, key in hand,
waiting to let her out. As she went, she glanced up at the High Altar,
unlit and lonely, with the tall candles like faint ghosts in the
twilight of the apse. It had a grim and awful look she thought,
suddenly.
“Good night, Mr. Stanniforth,” she said, quickly.
“Good night, Miss Climpson, good night.”
She was glad to come out of the shadowy porch into the green glow of the
June evening. She had felt a menace. Was it the thought of the stern
Baptist, with his call to repentance? the prayer for grace to speak the
truth and boldly rebuke vice? Miss Climpson decided that she would hurry
home and read the Epistle and Gospel—curiously tender and comfortable
for the festival of that harsh and uncompromising Saint. “And I can tidy
up these cards at the same time,” she thought.
Mrs. Budge’s first-floor front seemed stuffy after the scented
loveliness of the walk home. Miss Climpson flung the window open and sat
down by it to rearrange her sanctified oddments. The card of the Last
Supper went in at the Prayer of Consecration; the Fra Angelico
Annunciation had strayed out of the office for March 25th and was
wandering among the Sundays after Trinity; the Sacred Heart with its
French text belonged to Corpus Christi; the. . . “Dear me!” said Miss
Climpson, “I must have picked this up in church.”
Certainly the little sheet of paper was not in her writing. Somebody
must have dropped it. It was natural to look and see whether it was
anything of importance.
Miss Climpson was one of those people who say: “I am not the kind of
person who reads other people’s postcards.” This is clear notice to all
and sundry that they are, precisely, that kind of person. They are not
untruthful; the delusion is real to them. It is merely that Providence
has provided them with a warning rattle, like that of the rattlesnake.
After that, if you are so foolish as to leave your correspondence in
their way, it is your own affair.
Miss Climpson perused the paper.
In the manuals for self-examination issued to the Catholic-minded, there
is often included an unwise little paragraph which speaks volumes for
the innocent unworldliness of the compilers. You are advised, when
preparing for confession, to make a little list of your misdeeds, lest
one or two peccadilloes should slip your mind. It is true that you are
cautioned against writing down the names of other people or showing your
list to your friends, or leaving it about. But accidents may happen—and
it may be that this recording of sins is contrary to the mind of the
church, who bids you whisper them with fleeting breath into the ear of a
priest and bids him, in the same moment that he absolves, forget them as
though they had never been spoken.
At any rate, somebody had been recently shriven of the sins set forth
upon the paper—probably the previous Saturday—and the document had
fluttered down unnoticed between the confession-box and the hassock,
escaping the eye of the cleaner. And here it was—the tale that should
have been told to none but God—lying open upon Mrs. Budge’s round
mahogany table under the eye of a fellow-mortal.
To do Miss Climpson justice, she would probably have destroyed it
instantly unread, if one sentence had not caught her eye:
“The lies I told for M. W.’s sake.”
At the same moment she realised that this was Vera Findlater’s
handwriting, and it “came over her like a flash”—as she explained
afterwards, exactly what the implication of the words was.
For a full half-hour Miss Climpson sat alone, struggling with her
conscience. Her natural inquisitiveness said “Read”; her religious
training said, “You must not read”; her sense of duty to Wimsey, who
employed her, said, “Find out”; her own sense of decency said, “Do no
such thing”; a dreadful, harsh voice muttered gratingly, “Murder is the
question. Are you going to be the accomplice of Murder?” She felt like
Lancelot Gobbo between conscience and the fiend—but which was the fiend
and which was conscience?
“To speak the truth and boldly rebuke vice.”
Murder.
There was a real possibility now.
But _was_ it a possibility? Perhaps she had read into the sentence more
than it would bear.
In that case, was it not—almost—a duty to read further and free her mind
from this horrible suspicion?
She would have liked to go to Mr. Tredgold and ask his advice. Probably
he would, tell her to burn the paper promptly and drive suspicion out of
her mind with prayer and fasting.
She got up and began searching for the match-box. It would be better to
get rid of the thing quickly.
What, exactly, was she about to do?—To destroy the clue to the discovery
of a Murder?
Whenever she thought of the word, it wrote itself upon her brain in
large capitals, heavily underlined. MURDER—like a police-bill.
Then she had an idea. Parker was a policeman—and probably also he had no
particular feelings about the sacred secrecy of the Confessional. He had
a Protestant appearance—or possibly he thought nothing of religion one
way or the other. In any case, he would put his professional duty before
everything. Why not send him the paper, without reading it, briefly
explaining how she had come upon it? Then the responsibility would be
his.
On consideration, however, Miss Climpson’s innate honesty scouted this
scheme as jesuitical. Secrecy was violated by this open publication as
much as if she had read the thing—or more so. The old Adam, too, raised
his head at this point, suggesting that if anybody was going to see the
confession, she might just as well satisfy her own reasonable curiosity.
Besides—suppose she was quite mistaken. After all, the “lies” might have
nothing whatever to do with Mary Whittaker’s alibi. In that case, she
would have betrayed another person’s secret wantonly, and to no purpose.
If she _did_ decide to show it, she was bound to read it first—in
justice to all parties concerned.
Perhaps—if she just glanced at another word or two, she would see that
it had nothing to do with—MURDER—and then she could destroy it and
forget it. She knew that if she destroyed it unread she never would
forget it, to the end of her life. She would always carry with her that
grim suspicion. She would think of Mary Whittaker as—perhaps—a
Murderess. When she looked into those hard blue eyes, she would be
wondering what sort of expression they had when the soul behind them was
plotting—MURDER. Of course, the suspicions had been there before,
planted by Wimsey, but now they were her own suspicions. They
crystallised—became real to her.
“What shall I do?”
She gave a quick, shamefaced glance at the paper again. This time she
saw the word “London.”
Miss Climpson gave a kind of little gasp, like a person stepping under a
cold shower-bath.
“Well,” said Miss Climpson, “if this is a sin I am going to do it, and
may I be forgiven.”
With a red flush creeping over her cheeks as though she were stripping
something naked, she turned her attention to the paper.
The jottings were brief and ambiguous. Parker might not have made much
of them, but to Miss Climpson, trained in this kind of devotional
shorthand, the story was clear as print.
“Jealousy”—the word was written large and underlined. Then there was a
reference to a quarrel, to wicked accusations and angry words and to a
pre-occupation coming between the penitent’s soul and God. “Idol”—and a
long dash.
From these few fossil bones, Miss Climpson had little difficulty in
reconstructing one of those hateful and passionate “scenes” of slighted
jealousy with which a woman-ridden life had made her only too familiar.
“I do everything for you—you don’t care a bit for me—you treat me
cruelly—you’re simply sick of me, that’s what it is!” And “Don’t be so
ridiculous. Really, I can’t stand this. Oh, stop it, Vera! I hate being
slobbered over.” Humiliating, degrading, exhausting, beastly scenes.
Girls’ school, boarding-house, Bloomsbury-flat scenes. Damnable
selfishness wearying of its victim. Silly _schwärmerei_ swamping all
decent self-respect. Barren quarrels ending in shame and hatred.
“Beastly, blood-sucking woman,” said Miss Climpson, viciously. “It’s too
bad. She’s only making use of the girl.”
But the self-examiner was now troubled with a more difficult problem.
Piecing the hints together, Miss Climpson sorted it out with practised
ease. Lies had been told—that was wrong, even though done to help a
friend. Bad confessions had been made, suppressing those lies. This
ought to be confessed and put right. But (the girl asked herself) had
she come to this conclusion out of hatred of the lies or out of spite
against the friend? Difficult, this searching of the heart. And ought
she, not content with confessing the lies to the priest, also to tell
the truth to the world?
Miss Climpson had here no doubt what the priest’s ruling would be. “You
need not go out of your way to betray your friend’s confidence. Keep
silent if you can, but if you speak you must speak the truth. You must
tell your friend that she is not to expect any more lying from you. She
is entitled to ask for secrecy—no more.”
So far, so good. But there was a further problem.
“Ought I to connive at her doing what is wrong?”—and then a sort of
explanatory aside—“the man in South Audley Street.”
This was a little mysterious. . . No!—on the contrary, it explained the
whole mystery, jealousy, quarrel and all.
In those weeks of April and May, when Mary Whittaker had been supposed
to be all the time in Kent with Vera Findlater, she had been going up to
London. And Vera had promised to say that Mary was with her the whole
time. And the visits to London had to do with a man in South Audley
Street, and there was something sinful about it. That probably meant a
love-affair. Miss Climpson pursed her lips virtuously, but she was more
surprised than shocked. Mary Whittaker! she would never have suspected
it of her, somehow. But it so explained the jealousy and the quarrel—the
sense of desertion. But how had Vera found out? Had Mary Whittaker
confided in her?—No; that sentence again, under the heading
“Jealousy”—what was it—“following M. W to London.” She had followed
then, and seen. And then, at some moment, she had burst out with her
knowledge—reproached her friend. Yet this expedition to London must have
happened before her own conversation with Vera Findlater, and the girl
had then seemed so sure of Mary’s affection. Or had it been that she was
trying to persuade herself, with determined self-deception, that there
was “nothing in” this business about the man? Probably. And probably
some brutality of Mary’s had brought all the miserable suspicions
boiling to the surface, vocal, reproachful and furious. And so they had
gone on to the row and the break.
“Queer,” thought Miss Climpson, “that Vera has never come and told me
about her trouble. But perhaps she is ashamed, poor child. I haven’t
seen her for nearly a week. I think I’ll call and see her and perhaps
she’ll tell me all about it. In which case”—cried Miss Climpson’s
conscience, suddenly emerging with a bright and beaming smile from under
the buffets of the enemy—“in which case I shall know the whole history
of it legitimately and can _quite honourably_ tell Lord Peter about it.”
The next day—which was the Friday—she woke, however, with an unpleasant
ache in the conscience. The paper—still tucked into the
office-book—worried her. She went round early to Vera Findlater’s house,
only to hear that she was staying with Miss Whittaker. “Then I suppose
they’ve made it up,” she said. She did not want to see Mary Whittaker,
whether her secret was murder or mere immorality; but she was tormented
by the desire to clear up the matter of the alibi for Lord Peter.
In Wellington Avenue she was told that the two girls had gone away on
the Monday and had not yet returned. She tried to reassure the maid, but
her own heart misgave her. Without any real reason, she was uneasy. She
went round to the church and said her prayers, but her mind was not on
what she was saying. On an impulse, she caught Mr. Tredgold as he
pottered in and out of the Sacristy, and asked if she might come the
next evening to lay a case of conscience before him. So far, so good,
and she felt that a “good walk” might help to clear the cob-webs from
her brain.
So she started off, missing Lord Peter by a quarter of an hour, and took
the train to Guildford and then walked and had lunch in a wayside
tea-shop and walked back into Guildford and so came home, where she
learnt that “Mr. Parker and ever so many gentlemen had been asking for
her all day, and what a dreadful thing, miss, here was Miss Whittaker
and Miss Findlater disappeared and the police out looking for them, and
them motor-cars was such dangerous things, miss, wasn’t they? It was to
be hoped there wasn’t an accident.”
And into Miss Climpson’s mind there came, like an inspiration, the
words, “South Audley Street.”
Miss Climpson did not, of course, know that Wimsey was at Crow’s Beach.
She hoped to find him in Town. For she was seized with a desire, which
she could hardly have explained even to herself, to go and look at South
Audley Street. What she was to do when she got there she did not know,
but go there she must. It was the old reluctance to make open use of
that confession paper. Vera Findlater’s story at first hand—that was the
idea to which she obscurely clung. So she took the first train to
Waterloo, leaving behind her, in case Wimsey or Parker should call
again, a letter so obscure and mysterious and so lavishly underlined and
interlined that it was perhaps fortunate for their reason that they were
never faced with it.
In Piccadilly she saw Bunter, and learned that his lordship was at
Crow’s Beach with Mr. Parker, where he, Bunter, was just off to join
him. Miss Climpson promptly charged him with a message to his employer
slightly more involved and mysterious than her letter, and departed for
South Audley Street. It was only when she was walking up it that she
realised how vague her quest was and how little investigation one can do
by merely walking along a street. Also, it suddenly occurred to her that
if Miss Whittaker was carrying on anything of a secret nature in South
Audley Street, the sight of an acquaintance patrolling the pavement
would put her on her guard. Much struck by this reflection, Miss
Climpson plunged abruptly into a Chemist’s shop and bought a toothbrush,
by way of concealing her movements and gaining time. One can while away
many minutes comparing the shapes, sizes and bristles of toothbrushes,
and sometimes chemists will be nice and gossipy.
Looking round the shop for inspiration, Miss Climpson observed a tin of
nasal snuff labelled with the chemist’s own name.
“I will take a tin of that, too, please,” she said. “What _excellent_
stuff it is—quite _wonderful_. I have used it for _years_ and am really
_delighted_ with it. I recommend it to all my friends, particularly for
_hay fever_. In fact, there’s a friend of mine who often passes your
shop, who told me only _yesterday_ what a _martyr_ she was to that
complaint. ‘My dear,’ I said to her, ‘you have only to get a tin of this
_splendid_ stuff and you will be _quite_ all right _all_ summer.’ She
was so _grateful_ to me for telling her about it. Has she been in for it
yet?” And she described Mary Whittaker closely.
It will be noticed, by the way, that in the struggle between Miss
Climpson’s conscience and what Wilkie Collins calls “detective fever,”
conscience was getting the worst of it and was winking at an amount of
deliberate untruth which a little time earlier would have staggered it.
The chemist, however, had seen nothing of Miss Climpson’s friend.
Nothing, therefore, was to be done but to retire from the field and
think what was next to be done. Miss Climpson left, but before leaving
she neatly dropped her latchkey into a large basket full of sponges
standing at her elbow. She felt she might like to have an excuse to
visit South Audley Street again.
Conscience sighed deeply, and her guardian angel dropped a tear among
the sponges.
Retiring into the nearest tea-shop she came to, Miss Climpson ordered a
cup of coffee and started to think out a plan for honey-combing South
Audley Street. She needed an excuse—and a disguise. An adventurous
spirit was welling up in her elderly bosom, and her first dozen or so
ideas were more lurid than practical.
At length a really brilliant notion occurred to her. She was (she did
not attempt to hide it from herself) precisely the type and build of
person one associates with the collection of subscriptions. Moreover,
she had a perfectly good and genuine cause ready to hand. The church
which she attended in London ran a slum mission, which was badly in need
of funds, and she possessed a number of collecting cards, bearing full
authority to receive subscriptions on its behalf. What more natural than
that she should try a little house-to-house visiting in a wealthy
quarter?
The question of disguise, also, was less formidable than it might
appear. Miss Whittaker had only known her well-dressed and affluent in
appearance. Ugly, clumping shoes, a hat of virtuous ugliness, a
shapeless coat and a pair of tinted glasses would disguise her
sufficiently at a distance. At close quarters, it would not matter if
she was recognised, for if once she got to close quarters with Mary
Whittaker, her job was done and she had found the house she wanted.
Miss Climpson rose from the table, paid her bill and hurried out to buy
the glasses, remembering that it was Saturday. Having secured a pair
which hid her eyes effectively without looking exaggeratedly mysterious,
she made for her rooms in St. George’s Square, to choose suitable
clothing for her adventure. She realised, of course, that she could
hardly start work till Monday—Saturday afternoon and Sunday are hopeless
from the collector’s point of view.
The choice of clothes and accessories occupied her for the better part
of the afternoon. When she was at last satisfied she went downstairs to
ask her landlady for some tea.
“Certainly, miss,” said the good woman. “Ain’t it awful, miss, about
this murder?”
“What murder?” asked Miss Climpson, vaguely.
She took the _Evening Views_ from her landlady’s hand, and read the
story of Vera Findlater’s death.
Sunday was the most awful day Miss Climpson had ever spent. An active
woman, she was condemned to inactivity, and she had time to brood over
the tragedy. Not having Wimsey’s or Parker’s inside knowledge, she took
the kidnapping story at its face value. In a sense, she found it
comforting, for she was able to acquit Mary Whittaker of any share in
this or the previous murders. She put them down—except, of course, in
the case of Miss Dawson, and that might never have been a murder after
all—to the mysterious man in South Audley Street. She formed a nightmare
image of him in her mind—blood-boltered, sinister, and—most horrible of
all—an associate and employer of debauched and brutal assassins. To Miss
Climpson’s credit be it said that she never for one moment faltered in
her determination to track the monster to his lurking-place.
She wrote a long letter to Lord Peter, detailing her plans. Bunter, she
knew, had left 110A Piccadilly, so, after considerable thought, she
addressed it to Lord Peter Wimsey, c/o Inspector Parker, The
Police-Station, Crow’s Beach. There was, of course, no Sunday post from
Town. However, it would go with the midnight collection.
On the Monday morning she set out early, in her old clothes and her
spectacles, for South Audley Street. Never had her natural
inquisitiveness and her hard training in third-rate boarding-houses
stood her in better stead. She had learned to ask questions without
heeding rebuffs—to be persistent, insensitive and observant. In every
flat she visited she acted her natural self, with so much sincerity and
such limpet-like obstinacy that she seldom came away without a
subscription and almost never without some information about the flat
and its inmates.
By tea-time, she had done one side of the street and nearly half the
other, without result. She was just thinking of going to get some food,
when she caught sight of a woman, about a hundred yards ahead, walking
briskly in the same direction as herself.
Now it is easy to be mistaken in faces, but almost impossible not to
recognise a back. Miss Climpson’s heart gave a bound. “Mary Whittaker!”
she said to herself, and started to follow.
The woman stopped to look into a shop window. Miss Climpson hesitated to
come closer. If Mary Whittaker was at large, then—why then the
kidnapping had been done with her own consent. Puzzled, Miss Climpson
determined to play a waiting game. The woman went into the shop. The
friendly chemist’s was almost opposite. Miss Climpson decided that this
was the moment to reclaim her latchkey. She went in and asked for it. It
had been put aside for her and the assistant produced it at once. The
woman was still in the shop over the way. Miss Climpson embarked upon a
long string of apologies and circumstantial details about her
carelessness. The woman came out. Miss Climpson gave her a longish
start, brought the conversation to a close, and fussed out again,
replacing the glasses which she had removed for the chemist’s benefit.
The woman walked on without stopping, but she looked into the shop
windows from time to time. A man with a fruiterer’s barrow removed his
cap as she passed and scratched his head. Almost at once, the woman
turned quickly and came back. The fruiterer picked up the handles of his
barrow and trundled it away into a side street. The woman came straight
on, and Miss Climpson was obliged to dive into a doorway and pretend to
be tying a bootlace, to avoid a face to face encounter.
Apparently the woman had only forgotten to buy cigarettes. She went into
a tobacconist’s and emerged again in a minute or two, passing Miss
Climpson again. That lady had dropped her bag and was agitatedly sorting
its contents. The woman passed her without a glance and went on. Miss
Climpson, flushed from stooping, followed again. The woman turned in at
the entrance to a block of flats next door to a florist’s. Miss Climpson
was hard on her heels now, for she was afraid of losing her.
Mary Whittaker—if it was Mary Whittaker—went straight through the hall
to the lift, which was one of the kind worked by the passenger. She
stepped in and shot up. Miss Climpson—gazing at the orchids and roses in
the florist’s window—watched the lift out of sight. Then, with her
subscription card prominently in her hand, she too entered the flats.
There was a porter on duty in a little glass case. He at once spotted
Miss Climpson as a stranger and asked politely if he could do anything
for her. Miss Climpson, selecting a name at random from the list of
occupants in the entrance, asked which was Mrs. Forrest’s flat. The man
replied that it was on the fourth floor, and stepped forward to bring
the lift down for her. A man, to whom he had been chatting, moved
quietly from the glass case and took up a position in the doorway. As
the lift ascended, Miss Climpson noticed that the fruiterer had
returned. His barrow now stood just outside.
The porter had come up with her, and pointed out the door of Mrs.
Forrest’s flat. His presence was reassuring. She wished he would stay
within call till she had concluded her search of the building. However,
having asked for Mrs. Forrest, she must begin there. She pressed the
bell.
At first she thought the flat was empty, but after ringing a second time
she heard footsteps. The door opened, and a heavily over-dressed and
peroxided lady made her appearance, whom Lord Peter would at once—and
embarrassingly—have recognised.
“I have come,” said Miss Climpson, wedging herself briskly in at the
doorway with the skill of the practised canvasser, “to try if I can
enlist your help for our Mission Settlement. May I come in? I am sure
you—”
“No thanks,” said Mrs. Forrest, shortly, and in a hurried, breathless
tone, as if there was somebody behind her who she was anxious should not
overhear her, “I’m not interested in Missions.”
She tried to shut the door. But Miss Climpson had seen and heard enough.
“Good gracious!” she cried, staring, “why, it’s—”
“Come in.” Mrs. Forrest caught her by the arm almost roughly and pulled
her over the threshold, slamming the door behind them.
“How extraordinary!” said Miss Climpson, “I hardly recognised you, Miss
Whittaker, with your hair like that.”
“You!” said Mary Whittaker. “You—of all people!” They sat facing one
another in the sitting-room with its tawdry pink silk cushions. “I knew
you were a meddler. How did you get here? Is there anyone with you?”
“No—yes—I just happened,” began Miss Climpson vaguely. One thought was
uppermost in her mind. “How did you get free? What happened? Who killed
Vera?” She knew she was asking her questions crudely and stupidly. “Why
are you disguised like that?”
“Who sent you?” reiterated Mary Whittaker.
“Who is the man with you?” pursued Miss Climpson. “Is he here? Did he do
the murder?”
“What man?”
“The man Vera saw leaving your flat. Did he—?”
“So that’s it. Vera told you. The liar. I thought I had been quick
enough.”
Suddenly, something which had been troubling Miss Climpson for weeks
crystallised and became plain to her. The expression in Mary Whittaker’s
eyes. A long time ago, Miss Climpson had assisted a relative to run a
boarding-house, and there had been a young man who paid his bill by
cheque. She had had to make a certain amount of unpleasantness about the
bill, and he had written the cheque unwillingly, sitting, with her eye
upon him, at the little plush-covered table in the drawing-room. Then he
had gone away—slinking out with his bag when no one was about. And the
cheque had come back, like the bad penny that it was. A forgery. Miss
Climpson had had to give evidence. She remembered now the odd, defiant
look with which the young man had taken up his pen for his first plunge
into crime. And to-day she was seeing it again—an unattractive mingling
of recklessness and calculation. It was with the look which had once
warned Wimsey and should have warned her. She breathed more quickly.
“Who was the man?”
“The man?” Mary Whittaker laughed suddenly. “A man called Templeton—no
friend of mine. It’s really funny that you should think he was a friend
of mine. I would have killed him if I could.”
“But where is he? What are you doing? Don’t you know that everybody is
looking for you? Why don’t you—?”
“That’s why!”
Mary Whittaker flung her ten o’clock edition of the _Evening Banner_,
which was lying on the sofa. Miss Climpson read the glaring headlines.
AMAZING NEW DEVELOPMENTS
IN CROW’S BEACH CRIME.
——
WOUNDS ON BODY INFLICTED AFTER DEATH.
——
FAKED FOOTPRINTS.
——
Miss Climpson gasped with amazement, and bent over the smaller type.
“How extraordinary!” she said, looking up quickly.
Not quite quickly enough. The heavy brass lamp missed her head indeed,
but fell numbingly on her shoulder. She sprang to her feet with a loud
shriek, just as Mary Whittaker’s strong white hands closed upon her
throat.
CHAPTER XXIII
—And Smote Him, Thus
“_’Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door;_
_but ’tis enough, ’twill serve._”
_Romeo and Juliet_
Lord Peter missed both Miss Climpson’s communications. Absorbed in the
police inquiry, he never thought to go back to Leahampton. Bunter had
duly arrived with “Mrs. Merdle” on the Saturday evening. Immense police
activity was displayed in the neighbourhood of the downs, and at
Southampton and Portsmouth, in order to foster the idea that the
authorities supposed the “gang” to be lurking in those districts.
Nothing, as a matter of fact, was farther from Parker’s thoughts. “Let
her think she is safe,” he said, “and she’ll come back. It’s the
cat-and-mouse act for us, old man.” Wimsey fretted. He wanted the
analysis of the body to be complete and loathed the thought of the long
days he had to wait. And he had small hope of the result.
“It’s all very well sitting round with your large disguised policemen
outside Mrs. Forrest’s flat,” he said irritably, over the bacon and eggs
on Monday morning, “but you do realise, don’t you, that we’ve still got
no proof of murder. Not in one single case.”
“That’s so,” replied Parker, placidly.
“Well, doesn’t it make your blood boil?” said Wimsey.
“Hardly,” said Parker. “This kind of thing happens too often. If my
blood boiled every time there was a delay in getting evidence, I should
be in a perpetual fever. Why worry? It may be that perfect crime you’re
so fond of talking about—the one that leaves no trace. You ought to be
charmed with it.”
“Oh, I daresay. O Turpitude, where are the charms that sages have seen
in thy face? Time’s called at the Criminals’ Arms, and there isn’t a
drink in the place. Wimsey’s Standard Poets, with emendations by
Thingummy. As a matter of fact, I’m not at all sure that Miss Dawson’s
death _wasn’t_ the perfect crime—if only the Whittaker girl had stopped
at that and not tried to cover it up. If you notice, the deaths are
becoming more and more violent, elaborate and unlikely in appearance.
Telephone again. If the Post Office accounts don’t show a handsome
profit on telephones this year it won’t be your fault.”
“It’s the cap and shoes,” said Parker, mildly. “They’ve traced them.
They were ordered from an outfitter’s in Stepney, to be sent to the Rev.
H. Dawson, Peveril Hotel, Bloomsbury, to await arrival.”
“The Peveril again!”
“Yes. I recognise the hand of Mr. Trigg’s mysterious charmer. The Rev.
Hallelujah Dawson’s card, with message ‘Please give parcel to bearer,’
was presented by a District Messenger next day, with a verbal
explanation that the gentleman found he could not get up to Town after
all. The messenger, obeying instructions received by telephone, took the
parcel to a lady in a nurse’s dress on the platform at Charing Cross.
Asked to describe the lady, he said she was tall and wore blue glasses
and the usual cloak and bonnet. So that’s that.”
“How were the goods paid for?”
“Postal order, purchased at the West Central office at the busiest
moment of the day.”
“And when did all this happen?”
“That’s the most interesting part of the business. Last month, shortly
before Miss Whittaker and Miss Findlater returned from Kent. This plot
was well thought out beforehand.”
“Yes. Well, that’s something more for you to pin on to Mrs. Forrest. It
looks like proof of conspiracy, but whether it’s proof of murder—”
“It’s _meant_ to look like a conspiracy of Cousin Hallelujah’s, I
suppose. Oh, well, we shall have to trace the letters and the typewriter
that wrote them and interrogate all these people, I suppose. God! what a
grind! Hullo! Come in! Oh, it’s you, doctor?”
“Excuse my interrupting your breakfast,” said Dr. Faulkner, “but early
this morning, while lying awake, I was visited with a bright idea. So I
had to come and work it off on you while it was fresh. About the blow on
the head and the marks on the arms, you know. Do you suppose they served
a double purpose? Besides making it look like the work of a gang, could
they be hiding some other, smaller mark? Poison, for instance, could be
injected, and the mark covered up by scratches and cuts inflicted after
death.”
“Frankly,” said Parker, “I wish I could think it. It’s a very sound idea
and may be the right one. Our trouble is, that in the two previous
deaths which we have been investigating, and which we are inclined to
think form a part of the same series as this one, there have been no
signs or traces of poison discoverable in the bodies at all by any
examination or analysis that skill can devise. In fact, not only no
proof of poison, but no proof of anything but natural death.”
And he related the cases in fuller detail.
“Odd,” said the doctor. “And you think this may turn out the same way.
Still, in this case the death can’t very well have been natural—or why
these elaborate efforts to cover it up?”
“It wasn’t,” said Parker; “the proof being that—as we now know—the plot
was laid nearly two months ago.”
“But the method!” cried Wimsey, “the method! Hang it all—here are all we
people with our brilliant brains and our professional reputations—and
this half-trained girl out of a hospital can beat the lot of us. How was
it done?”
“It’s probably something so simple and obvious that it’s never occurred
to us,” said Parker. “The sort of principle you learn when you’re in the
fourth form and never apply to anything. Rudimentary. Like that
motor-cycling imbecile we met up at Crofton, who sat in the rain and
prayed for help because he’d never heard of an air-lock in his feed. Now
I daresay that boy had learnt—What’s the matter with you?”
“My God!” cried Wimsey. He smashed his hand down among the breakfast
things, upsetting his cup. “My God! But that’s it! You’ve got it—you’ve
done it—Obvious? God Almighty—it doesn’t need a doctor. A garage hand
could have told you. People die of it every day. Of course, it was an
air-lock in the feed.”
“Bear up, doctor,” said Parker, “he’s always like this when he gets an
idea. It wears off in time. D’you mind explaining yourself, old thing?”
Wimsey’s pallid face was flushed. He turned on the doctor.
“Look here,” he said, “the body’s a pumping engine, isn’t it? The jolly
old heart pumps the blood round the arteries and back through the veins
and so on, doesn’t it? That’s what keeps things working, what? Round and
home again in two minutes—that sort of thing?”
“Certainly.”
“Little valve to let the blood out; ’nother little valve to let it
in—just like an internal combustion engine, which it is?”
“Of course.”
“And s’posin’ that stops?”
“You die.”
“Yes. Now, look here. S’posin’ you take a good big hypodermic, empty,
and dig it into one of the big arteries and push the handle—what would
happen? What would happen, doctor? You’d be pumpin’ a big air-bubble
into your engine feed, wouldn’t you? What would become of your
circulation, then?”
“It would stop it,” said the doctor, without hesitation. “That is why
nurses have to be particular to fill the syringe properly, especially
when doing an intra-venous injection.”
“I _knew_ it was the kind of thing you learnt in the fourth form. Well,
go on. Your circulation would stop—it would be like an embolism in its
effect, wouldn’t it?”
“Only if it was in a main artery, of course. In a small vein the blood
would find a way round. That is why” (this seemed to be the doctor’s
favourite opening) “that is why it is so important that
embolisms—blood-clots—should be dispersed as soon as possible and not
left to wander about the system.”
“Yes—yes—but the air-bubble, doctor—in a main artery—say the femoral or
the big vein in the bend of the elbow—that would stop the circulation,
wouldn’t it? How soon?”
“Why, at once. The heart would stop beating.”
“And then?”
“You would die.”
“With what symptoms?”
“None to speak of. Just a gasp or two. The lungs would make a desperate
effort to keep things going. Then you’d just stop. Like heart failure.
It would _be_ heart failure.”
“How well I know it. . . That sneeze in the carburettor—a gasping, as
you say. And what would be the post-mortem symptoms?”
“None. Just the appearances of heart failure. And, of course, the little
mark of the needle, if you happened to be looking for it.”
“You’re sure of all this, doctor?” said Parker.
“Well, it’s simple, isn’t it? A plain problem in mechanics. Of course
that would happen. It must happen.”
“Could it be proved?” insisted Parker.
“That’s more difficult.”
“We must try,” said Parker. “It’s ingenious, and it explains a lot of
things. Doctor, will you go down to the mortuary again and see if you
can find any puncture mark on the body. I really think you’ve got the
explanation of the whole thing, Peter. Oh, dear! Who’s on the ’phone
now? . . . What?—_what?_—oh, hell!—Well, that’s torn it. She’ll never
come back now. Warn all the ports—send out an all-stations call—watch
the railways and go through Bloomsbury with a toothcomb—that’s the part
she knows best. I’m coming straight up to Town now—yes, immediately.
Right you are.” He hung up the receiver with a few brief, choice
expressions.
“That adjectival imbecile, Pillington, has let out all he knows. The
whole story is in the early editions of the _Banner_. We’re doing no
good here. Mary Whittaker will know the game’s up, and she’ll be out of
the country in two twos, if she isn’t already. Coming back to Town,
Wimsey?”
“Naturally. Take you up in the car. Lose no time. Ring the bell for
Bunter, would you? Oh, Bunter, we’re going up to Town. How soon can we
start?”
“At once, my lord. I have been holding your lordship’s and Mr. Parker’s
things ready packed from hour to hour, in case a hurried adjournment
should be necessary.”
“Good man.”
“And there is a letter for you, Mr. Parker, sir.”
“Oh, thanks. Ah, yes. The finger-prints off the cheque. H’m. Two sets
only—besides those of the cashier, of course—Cousin Hallelujah’s and a
female set, presumably those of Mary Whittaker. Yes, obviously—here are
the four fingers of the left hand, just as one would place them to hold
the cheque flat while signing.
“Pardon me, sir—but might I look at that photograph?”
“Certainly. Take a copy for yourself. I know it interests you as a
photographer. Well, cheerio, doctor. See you in Town some time. Come on,
Peter.”
Lord Peter came on. And that, as Dr. Faulkner would say, was why Miss
Climpson’s second letter was brought up from the police-station too late
to catch him.
They reached Town at twelve—owing to Wimsey’s brisk work at the
wheel—and went straight to Scotland Yard, dropping Bunter, at his own
request, as he was anxious to return to the flat. They found the Chief
Commissioner in rather a brusque mood—angry with the _Banner_ and
annoyed with Parker for having failed to muzzle Pillington.
“God knows where she will be found next. She’s probably got a disguise
and a get-away all ready.”
“Probably gone already,” said Wimsey. “She could easily have left
England on the Monday or Tuesday and nobody a penny the wiser. If the
coast had seemed clear, she’d have come back and taken possession of her
goods again. Now she’ll stay abroad. That’s all.”
“I’m very much afraid you’re right,” agreed Parker, gloomily.
“Meanwhile, what is Mrs. Forrest doing?”
“Behaving quite normally. She’s been carefully shadowed, of course, but
not interfered with in any way. We’ve got three men out there now—one as
a coster—one as a dear friend of the hall-porter’s who drops in every so
often with racing tips, and an odd-job man doing a spot of work in the
back-yard. They report that she has been in and out, shopping and so on,
but mostly having her meals at home. No one has called. The men deputed
to shadow her away from the flat have watched carefully to see if she
speaks to anyone or slips money to anyone. We’re pretty sure the two
haven’t met yet.”
“Excuse me, sir.” An officer put his head in at the door. “Here’s Lord
Peter Wimsey’s man, sir, with an urgent message.”
Bunter entered, trimly correct in bearing, but with a glitter in his
eye. He laid down two photographs on the table.
“Excuse me, my lord and gentlemen, but would you be so good as to cast
your eyes on these two photographs?”
“Finger-prints?” said the chief, interrogatively.
“One of them is our own official photograph of the prints on the £10,000
cheque,” said Parker. “The other—where did you get this, Bunter? It
looks like the same set of prints, but it’s not one of ours.”
“They appeared similar, sir, to my uninstructed eye. I thought it better
to place the matter before you.”
“Send Dewsby here,” said the Chief Commissioner.
Dewsby was the head of the fingerprint department, and he had no
hesitation at all.
“They are undoubtedly the same prints,” he said.
A light was slowly breaking in on Wimsey.
“Bunter—did these come off that wine-glass?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“But they are Mrs. Forrest’s!”
“So I understood you to say, my lord, and I have filed them under that
name.”
“Then, if the signature on the cheque is genuine—”
“We haven’t far to look for our bird,” said Parker, brutally. “A double
identity; damn the woman, she’s made us waste a lot of time. Well, I
think we shall get her now, on the Findlater murder at least, and
possibly on the Gotobed business.”
“But I understood there was an alibi for that,” said the Chief.
“There was,” said Parker, grimly, “but the witness was the girl that’s
just been murdered. Looks as though she had made up her mind to split
and was got rid of.”
“Looks as though several people had had a near squeak of it,” said
Wimsey.
“Including you. That yellow hair was a wig, then.”
“Probably. It never looked natural, you know. When I was there that
night she had on one of those close turban affairs—she might have been
bald for all one could see.”
“Did you notice the scar on the fingers of the right hand?”
“I did not—for the very good reason that her fingers were stiff with
rings to the knuckles. There was pretty good sense behind her ugly bad
taste. I suppose I was to be drugged—or, failing that, caressed into
slumber and then—shall we say, put out of circulation! Highly
distressin’ incident. Amorous clubman dies in a flat. Relations very
anxious to hush matter up. I was selected, I suppose, because I was seen
with Evelyn Cropper at Liverpool. Bertha Gotobed got the same sort of
dose, too, I take it. Met by old employer, accidentally, on leaving
work—£5 note and nice little dinner—lashings of champagne—poor kid as
drunk as a blind fiddler—bundled into the car—finished off there and
trundled out to Epping in company with a ham sandwich and a bottle of
Bass. Easy, ain’t it—when you know how?”
“That being so,” said the Chief Commissioner, “the sooner we get hold of
her the better. You’d better go at once, Inspector; take a warrant for
Whittaker or Forrest—and any help you may require.”
“May I come?” asked Wimsey, when they were outside the building.
“Why not? You may be useful. With the men we’ve got there already we
shan’t need any extra help.”
The car whizzed swiftly through Pall Mall, up St. James’s Street and
along Piccadilly. Half-way up South Audley Street they passed the
fruit-seller, with whom Parker exchanged an almost imperceptible signal.
A few doors below the entrance to the flats they got out and were almost
immediately joined by the hall-porter’s sporting friend.
“I was just going out to call you up,” said the latter. “She’s arrived.”
“What, the Whittaker woman?”
“Yes. Went up about two minutes ago.”
“Is Forrest there too?”
“Yes. She came in just before the other woman.”
“Queer,” said Parker. “Another good theory gone west. Are you sure it’s
Whittaker?”
“Well, she’s made up with old-fashioned clothes and greyish hair and so
on. But she’s the right height and general appearance. And she’s running
the old blue spectacle stunt again. I think it’s the right one—though of
course I didn’t get close to her, remembering your instructions.”
“Well, we’ll have a look, anyhow. Come along.”
The coster had joined them now, and they all entered together.
“Did the old girl go up to Forrest’s flat all right?” asked the third
detective of the porter.
“That’s right. Went straight to the door and started something about a
subscription. Then Mrs. Forrest pulled her in quick and slammed the
door. Nobody’s come down since.”
“Right. We’ll take ourselves up—and mind you don’t let anybody give us
the slip by the staircase. Now then, Wimsey, she knows you as Templeton,
but she may still not know for certain that you’re working with us. Ring
the bell, and when the door’s opened, stick your foot inside. We’ll
stand just round the corner here and be ready to rush.”
This manœuvre was executed. They heard the bell trill loudly.
Nobody came to answer it, however. Wimsey rang again, and then bent his
ear to the door.
“Charles,” he cried suddenly, “there’s something going on here.” His
face was white. “Be quick! I couldn’t stand _another_—!”
Parker hastened up and listened. Then he caught Peter’s stick and
hammered on the door, so that the hollow liftshaft echoed with the
clamour.
“Come on there—open the door—this is the police.”
And all the time, a horrid, stealthy thumping and gurgling sounded
inside—dragging of something heavy and a scuffling noise. Then a loud
crash, as though a piece of furniture had been flung to the floor—and
then a loud hoarse scream, cut brutally off in the middle.
“Break in the door,” said Wimsey, the sweat pouring down his face.
Parker signalled to the heavier of the two policemen. He came along,
shoulder first, lunging. The door shook and cracked. They stamped and
panted in the narrow space.
The door gave way, and they tumbled into the hall. Everything was
ominously quiet.
“Oh, quick!” sobbed Peter.
A door on the right stood open. A glance assured them that there was
nothing there. They sprang to the sitting-room door and pushed it. It
opened about a foot. Something bulky impeded its progress. They shoved
violently and the obstacle gave. Wimsey leapt over it—it was a tall
cabinet, fallen, with broken china strewing the floor. The room bore
signs of a violent struggle—tables flung down, a broken chair, a smashed
lamp. He dashed for the bedroom, with Parker hard at his heels.
The body of a woman lay limply on the bed. Her long, grizzled hair hung
in a dark rope over the pillow and blood was on her head and throat. But
the blood was running freely, and Wimsey could have shouted for joy at
the sight. Dead men do not bleed.
Parker gave only one glance at the injured woman. He made promptly for
the dressing-room beyond. A shot sang past his head—there was a snarl
and a shriek—and the episode was over. The constable stood shaking his
bitten hand, while Parker put the come-along-o’-me grip on the quarry.
He recognised her readily, though the peroxide wig had fallen awry and
the blue eyes were bleared with terror and fury.
“That’ll do,” said Parker, quietly, “the game’s up. It’s not a bit of
use. Come, be reasonable. You don’t want us to put the bracelets on, do
you? Mary Whittaker, alias Forrest, I arrest you on the charge—” he
hesitated for a moment and she saw it.
“On what charge? What have you got against me?”
“Of attempting to murder this lady, for a start,” said Parker.
“The old fool!” she said, contemptuously, “she forced her way in here
and attacked me. Is that all?”
“Very probably not,” said Parker. “I warn you that anything you say may
be taken down and used in evidence at your trial.”
Indeed, the third officer had already produced a notebook and was
imperturbably writing down: “When told the charge, the prisoner said ‘Is
that all?’” The remark evidently struck him as an injudicious one, for
he licked his pencil with an air of satisfaction.
“Is the lady all right—who is it?” asked Parker, coming back to a survey
of the situation.
“It’s Miss Climpson—God knows how she got here. I think she’s all right,
but she’s had a rough time.”
He was anxiously sponging her head as he spoke, and at that moment her
eyes opened.
“Help!” said Miss Climpson, confusedly. “The syringe—you shan’t—oh!” She
struggled feebly, and then recognised Wimsey’s anxious face. “Oh, dear!”
she exclaimed, “Lord Peter. Such an upset. Did you get my letter? Is it
all right? . . . Oh, dear! What a state I’m in. I—that woman—”
“Now, don’t worry, Miss Climpson,” said Wimsey, much relieved,
“everything’s quite all right and you mustn’t talk. You must tell us
about it later.”
“What was that about a syringe?” said Parker, intent on his case.
“She’d got a syringe in her hand,” panted Miss Climpson, trying to sit
up, and fumbling with her hands over the bed. “I fainted, I think—such a
struggle—and something hit me on the head. And I saw her coming at me
with the thing. And I knocked it out of her hand and I can’t remember
what happened afterwards. But I have _remarkable_ vitality,” said Miss
Climpson, cheerfully. “My dear father always used to say ‘Climpsons take
a lot of killing’!”
Parker was groping on the floor.
“Here you are,” said he. In his hand was a hypodermic syringe.
“She’s mental, that’s what she is,” said the prisoner. “That’s only the
hypodermic I use for my injections when I get neuralgia. There’s nothing
in that.”
“That is quite correct,” said Parker, with a significant nod at Wimsey.
“There is—nothing in it.”
On the Tuesday night, when the prisoner had been committed for trial on
the charges of murdering Bertha Gotobed and Vera Findlater, and
attempting to murder Alexandra Climpson, Wimsey dined with Parker. The
former was depressed and nervous.
“The whole thing’s been beastly,” he grumbled. They had sat up
discussing the case into the small hours.
“Interesting,” said Parker, “interesting. I owe you seven and six, by
the way. We ought to have seen through that Forrest business earlier,
but there seemed no real reason to suspect the Findlater girl’s word as
to the alibi. These mistaken loyalties make a lot of trouble.
“I think the thing that put us off was that it all started so early.
There seemed no reason for it, but looking back on Trigg’s story it’s as
plain as a pike-staff. She took a big risk with that empty house, and
she couldn’t always expect to find empty houses handy to do away with
people in. The idea was, I suppose, to build up a double identity, so
that, if Mary Whittaker was ever suspected of anything, she could
quietly disappear and become the frail but otherwise innocent Mrs.
Forrest. The real slip-up was forgetting to take back that £5 note from
Bertha Gotobed. If it hadn’t been for that, we might never have known
anything about Mrs. Forrest. It must have rattled her horribly when we
turned up there. After that, she was known to the police in both her
characters. The Findlater business was a desperate attempt to cover up
her tracks—and it was bound to fail, because it was so complicated.”
“Yes. But the Dawson murder was beautiful in its ease and simplicity.”
“If she had stuck to that and left well alone, we could never have
proved anything. We can’t prove it now, which is why I left it off the
charge-sheet. I don’t think I’ve ever met a more greedy and heartless
murderer. She probably really thought that anyone who inconvenienced her
had no right to exist.”
“Greedy and malicious. Fancy tryin’ to shove the blame on poor old
Hallelujah. I suppose he’d committed the unforgivable sin of askin’ her
for money.”
“Well, he’ll get it, that’s one good thing. The pit digged for Cousin
Hallelujah has turned into a gold-mine. That £10,000 cheque has been
honoured. I saw to that first thing, before Whittaker could remember to
try and stop it. Probably she couldn’t have stopped it anyway, as it was
duly presented last Saturday.”
“Is the money legally hers?”
“Of course it is. We know it was gained by a crime, but we haven’t
charged her with the crime, so that legally no such crime was committed.
I’ve not said anything to Cousin Hallelujah, of course, or he mightn’t
like to take it. He thinks it was sent him in a burst of contrition,
poor old dear.”
“So Cousin Hallelujah and all the little Hallelujahs will be rich.
That’s splendid. How about the rest of the money? Will the Crown get it
after all?”
“No. Unless she wills it to someone, it will go to the Whittaker
next-of-kin—a first cousin, I believe, called Allcock. A very decent
fellow, living in Birmingham. That is,” he added, assailed by sudden
doubt, “if first cousins _do_ inherit under this confounded Act.”
“Oh, I think first cousins are safe,” said Wimsey, “though nothing seems
safe nowadays. Still, dash it all, some relations must still be allowed
a look-in, or what becomes of the sanctity of family life? If so, that’s
the most cheering thing about the beastly business. Do you know, when I
rang up that man Carr and told him all about it, he wasn’t a bit
interested or grateful. Said he’d always suspected something like that,
and he hoped we weren’t going to rake it all up again, because he’d come
into that money he told us about and was setting up for himself in
Harley Street, so he didn’t want any more scandals.”
“I never did like that man. I’m sorry for Nurse Philliter.”
“You needn’t be. I put my foot in it again over that. Carr’s too grand
to marry a nurse now—at least, I fancy that’s what it is. Anyway, the
engagement’s off. And I was so pleased at the idea of playing Providence
to two deserving young people,” added Wimsey, pathetically.
“Dear, dear! Well, the girl’s well out of it. Hullo! there’s the ’phone.
Who on earth—? Some damned thing at the Yard, I suppose. At three ack
emma! Who’d be a policeman?—Yes?—Oh!—right, I’ll come round. The case
has gone west, Peter.”
“How?”
“Suicide. Strangled herself with a sheet. I’d better go round, I
suppose.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“An evil woman, if ever there was one,” said Parker, softly, as they
looked at the rigid body, with its swollen face and the deeper, red ring
about the throat.
Wimsey said nothing. He felt cold and sick. While Parker and the
Governor of the prison made the necessary arrangements and discussed the
case, he sat hunched unhappily upon his chair. Their voices went on and
on interminably. Six o’clock had struck some time before they rose to
go. It reminded him of the eight strokes of the clock which announce the
running-up of the black and hideous flag.
As the gate clanged open to let them out, they stepped into a wan and
awful darkness. The June day had risen long ago, but only a pale and
yellowish gleam lit the half-deserted streets. And it was bitterly cold
and raining.
“What is the matter with the day?” said Wimsey. “Is the world coming to
an end?”
“No,” said Parker, “it is the eclipse.”
Transcriber’s Notes
--In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the
HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)
--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and
dialect unchanged.