by E.
Shrugging his shoulders, he walked over to the body of Canley, and knelt down. Unfastening the laces of the corpse’s shoes, he drew them off the feet and, rising, carried them to the door of the room. There, he switched off the light, walked the length of the little hall and opened the front door. He was still carrying the shoes.
For the space of a couple of minutes he stood, shoeless, on the concrete path underneath the shade of the porch, his head on one side, listening.
The night was pitch dark, and damp with the November mist. Porter strained hard to distinguish the many sounds that came to his ears, sounds that in the daytime would have passed unnoticed, but in the darkness seemed so loud as to have been amplified through a microphone. The rustling of leaves in the surrounding trees, stirred by the slight wind mingled in the ears of the listening man with the monotonous drip-drip of water from the overflow pipe at the side of the house.
An owl hooted in the darkness a few feet away from him. Porter’s heart missed a beat. He was not a countryman, and the hoot sounded to him like a hail from a wayfarer who could see him outlined against the doorway of the cottage. Not until the hoot was repeated did he recognize it.
Once, he drew back into the darkness of the hall as he heard what he thought was the cry of a baby from the lane. He deluded his ears into identifying actual footsteps along the lane, and cursed the ill-luck that had brought parents and a child in the neighbourhood of the cottage on this of all nights, and at this particular time when minutes were precious to him. The cry came again, and he then recognized it as the mating wail of a predatory cat.
At last, satisfied that the lane was deserted he stepped clear of the porch, and in his stockinged feet walked down to the gate and through it into the road. But not along the flagged path! Instead, his progress lay along the grass edging to the path and the grass verge of the lane itself. Standing on the latter, he put on his feet the shoes of the dead man, lacing them comfortably. For a few seconds he stood thus in the soaking wet grass, shuffling the shoes into the turf until they were sodden and muddy. Then he stepped from the verge on to the lane, backwards so that he faced the cottage. Pushing open the gate he walked slowly and heavily up the flagged path to the doorway, and entered the cottage.
Behind him were the footsteps of Canley.
Now there could be seen the reason for Porter’s stockinged feet approach to the cottage when he had come to call on Canley.
The only person to enter the cottage along that path since the rain ceased, was Canley. There were no footprints of anyone else to show. Only the identifiable footsteps of the tenant.
That was the corroborative evidence of the loneliness of Canley in the cottage that night, which Porter had planned, and which the removal of fingerprints from the articles in the cottage room accentuated.
Back inside the cottage, he closed the hall door, and returned to the living-room. The fire was now burning lower but still threw long flickers of yellow light over the darkened room. Porter standing in the doorway and feeling for the light switch felt a sense of the eerie as he watched the light of the flickers pass over the still figure, lying like a silent sentinel asleep on duty. He switched on the lights. A glance at the clock threw the feeling of eeriness from him.
A final glance round the room convinced him that he had missed nothing of the plans he had prepared. Everything looked perfectly natural; the chair by the table, the bottle, glass and water carafe were all cosy. Perhaps, he said to himself, there was one thing that could improve the scene; the ashtray which he and Canley had used for cigar ash was on the sideboard; it would look better and more natural on the table with the other things. Porter placed it there. Then, walking to the mantelpiece, he took from the shelf the half-smoked cigar which had given him so great a fright, and pushed it in one of the pockets of his waistcoat. It was to be a link in a chain of accident.
The only blot on the story of the room now was the body of Canley. To complete the night’s narrative, it had to be transported to the railway line between 100 and 200 yards down the lane. This, Porter had regarded from the first moment of his planning as the only real risk he ran in the murder. There was the danger that, contrary to the general run of custom, someone might be walking along that lane at that hour of the night. True, on no occasion had he seen a soul, save for one drunk; and it was unlikely that anyone would use it since it led only up to the railway line. But there was always the danger that it could be used. A courting couple, for instance, might choose the spot because of its darkness and remoteness. An encounter by anyone with a person carrying a bundle of any kind on his back would be likely to arouse very considerable suspicion when, next morning, a body was found at a spot a few yards away from the line.
Such an encounter could, of course, be avoided, Porter realized, by his pushing himself against the blackness of the hedge until any such wayfarer or wayfarers had passed on their way. That was supposing always that he had sufficient warning of approach to be able to hide himself. But such a proceeding he wanted to avoid if possible; it was necessary for the success of his plot that there should be a definite impression in the lane of walking footsteps from the cottage to the railway. This was one of his most definite safeguards. To deviate from the centre of the lane to the grass verge and into the hedge and then back again to the road might be a proceeding on the part of the footsteps sufficiently curious to court inquiry.
This was the risk which Porter realized he had to run in the final stages of his planning; but it was one which had to be taken, so there was no sense in hesitating about it. The fact that the night was a nasty one for anyone to be out and that it would be well after eleven o’clock when he traversed the lane probably reduced the risk to a small one.
The first requirement was to prepare Canley for his walk. Porter pulled away the rug which he had wedged under the body to keep away any cooling draughts, and spread it out again behind the body. On it he spread Canley’s overcoat which he had brought into the room with his own coat. He rolled Canley over on the coat and began gently to ease the man’s arms into the sleeves.
The operation gave him many anxious moments. He had thought that it would be a comparatively easy matter to get Canley into the coat; instead it proved a stumbling-block. The heat of the fire beating on him from a foot or two away, combined with his own exertions and the nervous strain of handling the dead man sent him into a bath of perspiration. His clothes stuck to his body.
Glances at the clock did not help him in his task; it was taking considerably longer than he had bargained for. However, there was really ample time when at last he succeeded in getting the man’s arms into the sleeves, and was able finally to button the coat round the body. Provided there were no more delays, the time-table would still stand. His next task was to carry Canley from the room into the hall and prop him up in the chair standing at the side of the hallstand.
Canley’s shoes he now fetched from the flower bed just outside the front door, where he had left them to ensure that they remained thoroughly damp from the wet soil. Slinging his own shoes round his neck, he returned to the sitting-room, and put Canley’s shoes on his own feet. Another glance round the sitting-room assured him that nothing had been left behind, and that there remained nothing undone that he had planned to do. He switched off the light. Only the fire flickering over the room remained alive in the place.
The darkness of the interior of the house complete, he opened the front door. Then, with much grunting and heaving he hoisted and pulled the body of Canley on his shoulders, pick-a-back fashion and, thus laden, stepped out of the cottage on to the flagged path. Steadying himself against the porch, he took out the mutton-cloth from his overcoat pocket and grasping the knob of the door pulled it to. With the same caution he turned the key in the lock, afterwards dropping it into a pocket of Canley’s overcoat.
For a moment or two Porter stood in the shade of the porch, listening intently. No sound alien to the night was to be heard. Satisfied that there was nobody about he w
alked as quietly as he could down the path, through the cottage gate and into the lane.
The last walk of Canley had started.
Down the centre of the lane Porter progressed with his burden. He walked slowly, treading heavily and squarely to make certain that every impression of his shoes, or rather Canley’s shoes, was left sufficiently deeply and clearly in the wet softness of the lane to form a recognizable print. This was the groundwork—if the pun may be used—of the scheme which he had so patiently evolved and carried out for the disposal, finally, of his blackmailer.
Canley was no great weight, and Porter was strong. The more so since he was buoyed up with the prospect of a future free from the menace of Canley’s demands upon his purse, and upon his happiness with Mary. He was, however, bathed in perspiration, not from the burden of Canley, nor from the exertion of the walk—it was a cold night, anyway. The perspiration was that which is generated from fear. He had known that this walk with the dead man would be the hardest of the night’s tasks for him. Now that he was in the middle of it, and with no chance of turning back without imperilling his entire plotting, fear ruled his heart; his future, indeed, maybe his very life, rested on the success of this walk, and its outcome. Every sound of the night brought a feeling of terror to him; a stone flying from beneath his feet as his tread caught it on an edge, tip-cat fashion, sent his heart into his mouth. The shock caused him to stumble, and almost drop Canley, a circumstance which would have been fatal to his evening’s work. In time, however, he recovered, and after a pause resumed his walking.
Once, he thought he heard voices close to. The pounding of his heart and the throbbing of the artery in his neck seemed to him to be striking hammer blows loud enough to have been heard by the owners of the voices. He stood stock still, unable for the moment to move even a hand to ease the weight of Canley from one side to the other. Had a passer-by hove into sight Porter could not have moved away, even to save his life.
Nobody, however, did approach, and the beating in Porter’s ears died down. He realized that the voices must have been carried from people on the road on the far side of the railway line, probably from a couple of people calling good night near the bus stop. He continued with his walk. Within a couple of minutes he had reached the railway bridge and passed underneath it. In front of him a path ran up the side of the embankment leading to the railway lines.
He had now reached much harder going, and was slightly out of breath, for the ascent to the embankment top was rather steep even without the addition of a burden such as Porter was carrying. Then it was important for him not to slip on the wet surface of the slope. Porter, before approving the details of his plan had studied the effect of weight on footsteps. Such was the care with which he had gone into details for the killing of Canley. If a slip mark was heavily scored in the path it might be assumed, he had realized, that the man who had slipped was carrying a weight of some kind, and a heavy one at that. No trace of a weight would be found beside Canley when his body was found, and that would be a suspicious circumstance.
In any case if he did slip on the ascent it would be impossible for him to recover and Canley would probably be sent flying from his shoulders to the bottom of the path. Nothing would ever be able to remove tell-tale signs of that happening. So Porter trod carefully and slowly, tensing his legs and making sure that each foot was safely holding before he went ahead with the next step.
At last, he reached the top in safety, and breathed a sigh of relief. He let Canley slip down on the grass at the side of the metals. He had been nearly four minutes climbing the short slope. If his breath was coming heavily, his heart was beating lightly, and he hummed jubilantly to himself. He was safe! He paused and again strained his ears for any sound of passers-by. There were none. It did not matter now if there were, so long as they remained on the roadway, or in the lane. They could see neither him nor Canley from there. It was a thousand to one chance against anyone coming up the bank for the short cut now, for the last train of the night was due to pass within a few minutes’ time, and most of the villagers knew it, and would avoid the line until it had passed. By that time Canley would be dead—dead, that is, from the accident which he, Porter, was going to stage for the benefit of himself. The stage was, therefore, clear to arrange those final obsequies of the man.
These he now proceeded to carry out. He lifted the body of Canley and placed it in the permanent way, between the two sets of metals, and just past the spot where people taking the short cut stepped over the metals. Then, lifting it by the shoulders he laid the neck over a rail of the down track, so that Canley was lying clear of the lines except for his head.
Stepping back he peered through the darkness at the position of the form. It looked perfectly natural for what it was supposed to show after the passing of the train. Porter nodded in satisfaction.
From the waistcoat pocket where he had placed it, he now extracted the cigar which he had half-smoked. Walking half a dozen paces up the line, he turned and flicked it with a sharp action towards and over Canley’s body. It was as he threw, that the first sounds of the approaching train sounded. The time-table which he had compiled had worked out perfectly, despite the one or two delays which had caused him some anxiety at the time.
Taking Canley’s shoes off his feet, Porter placed them on the feet of the corpse, and laced them up. His own shoes were still hanging by their laces round his neck. The plan was now completed.
In less than three minutes’ time the last train of the night would come along that line, racing as it always did up the slight rise to the station before the driver began to brake.
Canley’s severed head, the cigar knocked from his mouth by the impact and lying between the lines, his footsteps from the cottage along the lane, together with the mise en scène inside the cottage would tell their own story, and plainly, to the police when they came to investigate.
The noise of the train was now growing louder and the rails were vibrating. Within a moment or two the engine would be rounding the bed. Porter, still in his stockinged feet, began walking towards the up-line embankment. He was bending almost two-double in case his figure should be silhouetted against the sky to a pedestrian on the road below. And he was whistling softly.
Suddenly he stopped dead, as though shot. His heart came into his mouth again, for the third time that evening. Fool that he was, he said to himself, he had again nearly given himself away, and rendered useless all the thought, care and work which he had put in at the cottage.
Canley’s shoes! He had handled those shoes half a dozen times. His fingerprints were all over them. If any suspicions chanced to be aroused and the police began to look for clues they might well find suspicion in shoes marked with the fingers of someone other than the wearer.
He ran back, still bending low, to the body, and taking from a pocket the piece of mutton-cloth which had done such useful service in polishing that night, rubbed with it every part of the shoes, going over them three or four times.
The train had now just turned the bend; in the darkness Porter could see the reflecting glow of the window lights on the bordering trees. He again crossed the metals to the up-line and walked rapidly on the grass verge towards the junction. As the train approached he lay flat down in the wet grass, completely hidden from view, even if the driver had had sufficient light to see him.
The train rumbled past; Porter remained supine for a full minute after its passing in case anyone should be looking out of a window, the guard for instance, and should see a figure outlined.
He saw the train stop at the station, and resume its journey to the terminus. Then, as the tail lights grew smaller and smaller, and finally disappeared round a curve, he rose, elated, and with a song in his heart continued along the ballast way, following the course that he had pursued on the night of the final rehearsal of his plot.
He had walked for a quarter of an hour when he reached a bridge near the junction—the lights of the junction platforms were, in fact, in view. A r
oad lay beneath him. Carefully he descended the embankment and stepped out on the highway. Not till then did he put on his shoes. Shod at last he walked smartly to the junction, and walked on to the down platform. He did not buy a ticket; by that omission there could be nobody to identify him as having been at the station at that hour. A wait of only ten minutes was necessary before the last train of the night for Staines drew in. Porter stood by the side of an empty compartment until the guard signalled the train away. Then he slipped into the compartment. Again, as he had planned, there would be nobody with him to give any evidence of identification if, somehow, suspicion was directed towards him.
At Staines he walked to the market car park. His car was there, and with two others. He drove back to the garage, locked up and went upstairs to the bedroom.
Mary was asleep. She stirred slightly, but did not awake. He bent over her and brushed her brow with his lips. “Mary—” he whispered, under his breath. In the darkness he undressed and crept into bed beside her.
He was safe!
PART TWO
CHERCHEZ L’HOMME
CHAPTER X
On the tick of 6.30 the first train of the day drew out of the Surrey terminal station on its torpidly slow journey to London. It negotiated the long curve into Thames Pagnall at a slumbering ten miles an hour.
The handful of passengers huddled together for warmth in a party-compartment designed by a considerate railway for convivial gatherings of executives up to a number of twelve, looked sleepy-eyed out of the windows at the dawning light.
“Old Charlie on it agen today?” The question was thrown at large by an artisan holding his bag of tools across his knees.