by E.
Arrived at the door, he peered through a crick in the curtains at the corner of the window. It was essential to ascertain that Canley was alone. If the woman whom he had seen before with Canley was present, then the plot would have to be put off to another night. The inspection, however, showed Canley sitting in an armchair and nobody with him. Satisfied, Porter put on and laced his shoes and the operation completed, he knocked at the cottage door.
It opened within a few seconds. Canley stood outlined in the aperture.
“Who’s there?” he asked. He peered into the darkness and recognized his visitor. “Ah! Come in, Jack,” he invited.
Anyone seeing or hearing the greeting would have imagined from the bluff heartiness of it that the two were bosom friends.
Porter made no response, but entered the cottage, closing the door behind him. Canley led the way to the sitting-room, and pulled forward a chair for his guest, placing it opposite that in which he had been sitting.
Porter looked round the room. There was not, so far as he could see any trace of another occupant or visitor. Nevertheless, it was vital that he should be sure that he and his intended victim were really alone in the cottage. The woman might be upstairs, waiting for the expected visitor to come and go again before she made her reappearance. Such a circumstance. Porter realized, would spell disaster to his plans. He decided on a ruse that would allow him unsuspectingly to search the house. He held up his overcoat to his host.
“I think I’d like a wash and brash-up, Canley,” he explained. “I’ve been working late, and haven’t had time to change. And I’ll hang this coat in the hall while I’m about it.”
“All right, Jack,” Canley agreed without any enthusiasm or otherwise. Porter nodded and went into the kitchen, where he made a pretence of washing. He mounted the stairs to Canley’s bedroom, whistling the while as he used a hairbrush and comb. This operation over, he moved stealthily to the doors of the other two rooms. They were empty. It was plain, however, that the woman had been in the cottage, for there were a number of articles of feminine wear lying scattered about. Porter concluded that Canley had got rid of her on some excuse to leave him free to wait his (Porter’s) arrival.
Canley was sitting in his chair when Porter re-entered the sitting-room. He greeted his guest jovially.
“Thought you’d gone to bed, Jack.” He chuckled at his joke. “I reckon that after your journey on a night like this you can do with a spot of something, eh? It’s a damned nasty night, I guess, though I haven’t had to go out in it.”
He fetched a bottle of whisky from the sideboard and placed it on the table with a couple of glasses and a carafe of water. Then he poured out two fingers of the whisky. He raised his glass. “Good health,” he said.
Porter stifled a chuckle. He reflected that his host little knew how his health would soon not matter to him at all, or how soon it would be before he need not trouble about his health. “And to you,” was all he said, and downed the drink in a gulp.
He wanted that whisky. Now that the time was approaching for the deed on which he had decided, Porter felt a sinking feeling within him. There was but a short time to go before what would be for him the crossing of the Rubicon, an act from which there could be no recall. He began to wonder whether he had really covered every point of danger. It is much easier to kill a man when you are, say, eight miles from him, than it is when he is sitting at your elbow.
Porter welcomed that drink in order to keep his nerve going and quieten the fears that now began to crowd in on him. As a matter of fact, he had come prepared with a flask in his hip-pocket for just such a drugging; but it pleased him to let Canley give the drink that was to fortify his murderer.
“I think I’ll have another whisky, Canley,” he said. He pulled a couple of cigars from a pocket, and handed one over. “Have a cigar?”
Canley took it, and bit off the end. Porter struck a match, and the two smokes were lighted from it. The match-end Porter placed in the ashtray on the table. One of those cigars was a ‘prop’ in the plan to end Canley’s existence. So was the match-end. Porter reflected that his plan so far had gone according to time-table.
A few minutes passed in blowing the smoke from the cigars before Canley introduced the reason for the visit. “How’s business, Jack?” he asked.
Porter laughed silently. He realized the kind of business to which Canley was referring; he played with his desire with a pretence that the query was concerned with just everyday business.
“Oh, it isn’t too bad,” he replied. “I’ve a good bit of work in hand and things are looking up. I think they’ll be even better next week.” He chuckled as he spoke. Canley looked up. It was a pity, thought Porter, that he could not share in the joke. He did, however, show some interest in the observation; doubtless he saw a vista of more money from the business finding its way into his pockets.
“I wish they were looking up for me, Jack,” he answered, and shook his head sadly. “I don’t want to be sponging on you for money. You’ve been very good to me. But I’ve got this house to carry on and I can’t get money. Went for a job again today. They asked for references. I ask you, can I give a reference? a gaol-bird?” He shook his head mournfully.
“Damned hypocrite,” said Porter under his breath. In Canley’s bedroom he had seen a race-card for that day at Sandown, which was a course only twenty minutes’ walk from the cottage. That, Porter soliloquized was the job Canley had been after.
Canley was now exhibiting signs of impatience. Porter was talking rapidly and easily about the weather, racing, the government and any topic that came into his head; his host answered in monosyllables, and fidgeted in his chair. At last he broke into the small talk with a peremptory demand.
“Have you brought the money?” he asked.
“No, I haven’t,” Porter replied.
Canley stared, in surprise.
“Oh! And why not?” he demanded.
Porter blew a whiff of his cigar smoke towards him. The time for the deed was now coming close. His heart was beating a little more quickly, but he showed no outward concern. Indeed, he managed to bring up a little smile of unconcern as he answered the question.
“Because I’m not paying any more blackmail,” he said. “That’s why.” He worked himself into a simulated temper. “I can’t afford it for one thing, and for another I’m not going to, even if I could afford it. You’ve had all I can spare, and now I’ve finished. That’s why I came here to tell you.” He banged his hand down on the table in emphasis.
Had Canley had the sense to see the red light, and to realize that his money-making was ended, he would have been alive next day. But he hadn’t the intelligence to know that he must stop blackmail some time.
He jumped out of his chair. He cursed and shouted. “I’ve done three years for you,” he said, “and now you’re doing well out of a good business, and won’t help me.” He swore again, and came towards Porter menacingly. Porter took up a boxing stance, and he backed away, but went on cursing. Porter kept silent and waited.
That seemed to quieten Canley. He seemed to realize that violence was not going to pay him. He stopped and sat down in his chair again. Then he began speaking, all quietly and nastily.
“So,” he said. “You won’t play any more, eh? All right. The police will have a letter tomorrow. It will tell them that Jack Porter, who has a flourishing little garage business on the Staines By-pass is Jack Edwins, wanted for burglary and assault on the police at Paignton.”
He waited. Porter made no reply but sat calmly—at least to outside appearance—smoking his cigar.
“You’ll get a taste of what I had—clink. See. We were partners once, and—”
He paused. Porter, watching, saw that he had suddenly thought of something.
“Well, fancy me never thinking of that before.” Canley grinned. “Staring me in the face, too. Partners. We were partners once before and we can be partners again. A partnership in that little garage of yours is just the very t
hing. I could keep an eye on things, and then I wouldn’t be taking your money, would I? I’d be earning my own money. Damn it, it’s the very thing. What do you say to that, Jack?” He leered.
Porter saw red. If he had had any scruples about killing Canley, they vanished at that moment at that foul scheme. Canley in his garage, the place he had built up with the sweat of his brow, and with toil, for the woman he loved and who even now was waiting for him. The man in front of him read his thoughts.
“Call it a deal, Jack. Or will you pay the hundred pounds?” he asked.
The alternative finally made up Porter’s mind.
“All right,” he said, “you win. I’ve brought the money. I just wanted to see how far in vileness you’d go. Now I know. I’ll know what to do in future.”
“Never mind the future,” retorted Canley. “Hand over the money.”
“It’s in my overcoat pocket,” said Porter, and got up to go into the kitchen. He had the money on him, but the weapon which was to end Canley’s life was in the overcoat. Porter had chosen a big flat garage jack-spanner, a heavy and formidable weapon. In the hall he took it from his overcoat and slipped it into his right-hand trouser pocket, lifting the flap of the waistcoat over the top of it to keep it in position. Then, taking out the packet of notes he went back into the sitting-room with them in his hands.
“There you are,” he said. “You’d better count them to see none is missing. I’ll stand by the side of you while you do it—just to see you don’t make any mistakes.”
Canley snatched the wad, and zipped the notes through his fingers, as one does a pack of cards. Then he began to count.
Porter stood there, talking in as natural a voice as he could muster. As Canley came near the end of the notes, Porter took out the spanner. He need not have troubled to talk; Canley’s only concern was the counting of the money. At last the counting was finished. Canley bent his head slightly sideways to see into his inside pocket, as he tucked the hundred pounds away.
That was Porter’s opportunity. At that moment he struck.
If his plans were to go off without a hitch, it was necessary that there should be no sign of attack on Canley’s body. That would be fatal. Provided the blow was struck at the exact spot Porter had worked out, nothing would be visible of the blow when the body was finally disposed of.
That spot was where the neck joined the spine. And it was there that Porter’s spanner fell, with all his strength behind it.
Canley sagged in his chair, lurched forwards, and then fell out of it, face downwards on the carpet. He had not spoken a word, or made a sound. Porter hit him twice again on the same spot.
Then he turned him over. The heart was not beating.
Canley was dead.
CHAPTER VIII
Jack Porter stood staring down at the figure of Canley. In his hand he still held the jack-spanner with which he had ended the man’s life. He looked at it, in his right hand, and from it to the body and back again. The fire shot out bursts of flame, throwing the two men in relief against the background of the room, lighting the macabre scene with shafts of yellow, which died as the flames went down, only to be revived once more when the new gas jets in the coals again roared the flames into being.
Canley lay on his back, flat, except that one leg was resting over the other; it had been dragged into that position when Porter had pulled him over. The eyes of the man stared glazingly up to those of his watching murderer. His face was unchanged from that which had greeted Porter in life; the sneering leer with which he had taunted Porter into producing the £100 was fixed as though it had been carved there by a sculptor. Death had come upon him with a suddenness and unexpectedness that left no opportunity to reveal itself. Nor had the ruddiness of colour yet faded from the face; the pallor of death had still to come. Indeed, so disturbingly natural an appearance did the body present that Porter, looking down on it, wondered whether his persecutor could really yet be spoken of in the past tense.
He bent down and felt again the heart. There seemed to be no beating. Still unsatisfied he let his gaze wander round the room, searching for something. Crossing the floor he lifted down from a wall an oblong mirror measuring some two feet by eighteen inches. Polishing it with his handkerchief Porter held it, cumberously, close to the mouth of Canley, letting it remain there for a quarter of a minute. He looked anxiously at the surface; it showed no sign of vaporization. With a sigh of relief he replaced the mirror on the wall; there remained no doubt in his mind that Canley was dead, and that he, Porter, was free.
Free—but for the moment only; only the first stage in his freedom had so far been reached. Up to now the murder of Canley had gone according to plan; there remained the second and final stage. To make him completely safe Canley must appear to have died from an accident. That was what Porter had planned with such care. On his subsequent movements, he realized, rested safety and final and absolute security.
During his deliberations on the means of ridding himself of Canley he had debated whether the best plan was to steal away from the cottage as quietly and unnoticed as he had arrived. Was that, he had asked himself, the best course. He could very easily obliterate all traces of his personal presence, and thus leave the cottage without fear of discovery. He had never been seen in the presence of Canley, except on that one occasion in the market-place of Kingston, and never at all in Thames Pagnall. He had not visited the cottage in daylight; on such occasions as he had come down with the blackmail money it had been always under cover of darkness.
Only once had he passed a living person in the lane leading to Canley’s cottage, and that person had been too drunk to recognize him, or even probably to remember that he had seen anyone there. So there could be no connection between the dead man and himself. Porter had considered these points before elaborating his plan. The result of his split-mind discussions was that such a course of action constituted a position which might well become dangerous.
Canley would be found dead by the charwoman when she arrived next morning. That meant, inevitably, that a doctor would be called in: a consequence as fatal as the blow which had stretched Canley in the position in which he now lay. The doctor would diagnose immediately that death was not due to natural causes. His examination would lead to the discovery of the injury to the top of the spine. It would be equally obvious that such an injury could be due only to a blow. A blow on that part of the body was impossible by self-infliction; some extraneous cause was the only possible explanation. Accidentally received? There was nothing in the room that could by any stretch of imagination have caused an accident of that description.
The result of the doctor’s report would be that the police must instigate inquiries. Therein lay the danger as Porter had seen it. He had accordingly dismissed the plan to leave the dead man in the cottage and vanish as silently as he had come. Canley, he had decided, must die from an accident. The decision made, Porter had set himself down to plan such an accident. Stage by stage he had plotted, revised and remodelled his ideas until, finally, there had emerged a plan that was fool-proof, and perfect.
The time had now arrived to put that plan into operation. To ensure success it was necessary to work to a time-table. Porter’s planning in this direction had called for the death of Canley at 10.30 p.m., allowing for a few minutes either way. In point of fact, the fatal blow had been struck almost to the minute. Porter glanced at the clock; there now remained exactly three quarters of an hour for him satisfactorily to dispose of the body.
The body itself was his first concern. On certain conditions in it rested success or failure of his plan. For that reason Porter had devoted a great deal of attention to the conduct of bodies—the biological conduct, that is. An omnivorous reader of detective stories—it was, as a matter of fact, his mental digestion of thrillers that had first led him to think of murdering Canley—he modelled his plan on the mistakes made by lawbreakers in the novels he had read. One of the first clues in a murder case, he knew, was concerned with the t
ime of death. Alibis had (in fiction as well as in real life) been ruined on numerous occasions by proof of the time of death.
A human body, Porter had learned, cooled off at a certain rate. He had gone into a reference library and looked the matter up in a medical book. The outside of the body cooled first, and the rate of cooling depended on the temperature surrounding it. The longer the outside could be kept warm, the longer would be the cooling of the interior be delayed.
To ensure the success of his plan of Canley’s ‘accidental’ death, it was essential that the man’s blood should be uncongealed and still able to run freely at 11.35 p.m. In other words, a doctor must be able to certify that death had taken place round about that hour. It was now about a quarter to eleven o’clock, which meant that the time of death had not only to be disguised for an hour from the actual time, but the blood in the body had by some means to be prevented from cooling to any extent. Porter had directed his plotting energies to this end, and he was convinced that he had learned sufficient to be able to accomplish the task with success.
A bright fire was still burning in the grate in the room. On it he heaped the remaining coals in the scuttle standing by the hearthside. This completed, he dragged the body of Canley towards the fireplace until it was stretched out on its back in the full blaze of the roaring fire. Lest there should be any cooling effect of a draught from under the doors Porter rolled up a rug and wedged it under the full length of the side of the body farthest from the fire. Inspecting the completed operation, he nodded his satisfaction, and turned his efforts to the next stage of the ‘accident’—the table.
On it were standing drinking tumblers, a bottle half-full of whisky, a carafe of water and an ashtray. The latter contained a certain amount of ash from the cigars which he and Canley had smoked, or rather, partly smoked, during their talking. The unsmoked half of Canley’s cigar lay on the floor where it had been shot from his mouth when he had been struck the fatal blow. Porter picked it up and dropped it into the heart of the coals now blazing furiously up the chimney, and stirred it into total destruction with the poker. One of the cigar stumps was planned to play a leading part in the story of the ‘accident’ to Canley—the simple story of a single smoker in that room who had left it to meet death. Two cigars would tell a story of two men, which would be fatally destructive to the plan.