“Did you see… out there?”
Calls nodded his head slowly, then rolled his window down.
“Sergeant, we’ve known each other for a long time. Tell me what you really think about all this. Is there anything you would run away from, even if you had a loaded pistol in your hand?”
Raising his eyebrows slightly, Calls glanced quickly at Gregory; then, with great deliberateness, flicked his ash. It looked as if he wasn’t going to say anything, but suddenly he blurted out:
“A tank.”
“Come on, you know what I’m talking about.”
The sergeant took a deep drag on his cigarette.
“I looked around pretty good myself, sir. The way I see it, this Williams is circling the place the way he’s supposed to; somewhere around five, or a little after, he sees something he don’t like too much. He don’t clear out right away, though. That’s important. He stands his ground… draws his pistol, only he don’t have time to release the safety.”
“Couldn’t he have drawn his pistol after he started running?” Gregory asked. His eyes sparkled as he studied the sergeant’s face. Calls smiled unexpectedly.
“You know yourself it can’t be done. These holsters of ours are pretty tight. You saw those footprints, didn’t you? This guy took off like a bat out of hell. A man who’s running like that can’t wrestle with a holster flap. He had to get it open first. Even in the worst fog you can see a pair of headlights at thirty feet, especially if they’re shining right in your face. But Williams didn’t see them, he didn’t see nothing. Whatever it was, it really got him.”
“Who would an armed constable run away from?” Gregory repeated, a blank expression on his face. He didn’t expect an answer, and he didn’t get one.
4
“Well?” said Sheppard. Gregory handed him the written report.
“This is a complete summary, sir.”
Sheppard opened the folder and began reading:
“9:40 a.m. J. Hansel dies at breakfast of heart attack. Dr. Adams certifies death.
“2:00 p.m. Undertaker arrives. Hansel’s sister doesn’t want to give clothing. Undertaker puts naked body in coffin, takes it to mortuary.
“5:00 p.m.
Constable Atkins begins tour at mortuary. Body in open coffin. Door held shut by piece of lath stuck through latch.
“11:00 p.m. Constable Sticks begins tour. Checks mortuary by opening door. No changes. Begins to snow. N.B. Cat may have slipped into mortuary around this time while Sticks not looking.
“3:00 a.m. Williams relieves Sticks. Doesn’t open door, shines flashlight through window in presence of Sticks, who ascertains nothing is changed, then returns to town.
“5:25-5:35 a.m. Smithers telephones Pickering police station, reports running over policeman.
“5:50–6:00 a.m. Ambulance from Hackey arrives on scene with Dr. Adams. Pickering police commander arrives on scene. Williams, still unconscious, taken to hospital. He has fractured skull and three broken ribs. Bentley sedan smashed into tree about 183 yards from mortuary; either trunk or rear bumper hit Williams. Commander proceeds to mortuary, ascertains that door is half-open; finds corpse, contractile, lying on side, about three feet in front of door; one window of mortuary broken, pane smashed from inside, pieces of glass embedded in snow. Commander finds cat inside mortuary. Takes it with him. Cat goes into convulsions, dies on way to town.
“Prints discovered around mortuary:
“1. Footprints of Constable Williams, corresponding to impression of his boots; in circular path around mortuary, then veer away from mortuary, head toward broken window, then toward road, ending up at scene of accident.
“2. Footprints of Pickering police commander. Difficult to distinguish since they follow directly on Williams’s prints, obliterating part of outline left by instep.
“3. One very clear print of bare foot, identified as left foot of dead man, found just outside broken window of mortuary; facing toward wall, toes turned slightly inward; print very deep, as if impressed by substantial weight.
“4. Prints leading from window around corner of building to door; may have been made by someone crawling on all fours or creeping. Marked depression of prints suggests indentations made by pressure of knees. Prints well preserved in two places where snow very compressed: features indicate prints made by bare skin.
“5. Paw prints of cat, corresponding in size and shape to paws of dead cat. Found about 30 yards from mortuary in direction of stream in deep snow among bushes; prints disappear near mortuary as if cat climbed up on bush.
“6. Human footprints found on soft bottom of stream (deepest part, near mortuary, about 16 inches), at distances of 139, 133, and 123 feet respectively from mortuary. Prints probably formed by boots but washed out, not very clear, providing insufficient basis for identification; time of formation impossible to determine; according to lab, possibly two to six days ago.
“Observation (a). Wood shavings found in indentations mentioned in item 4 and under window were identical to shavings in coffin.
“Observation (b). Indentations mentioned in item 4 led to place where body was found but not as far as door (distance measured in feet).
“Observation (c). Distance from path where Constable Williams’s footprints were found to bank of stream, measured in straight line at shortest point, was 42 feet; area concerned is covered by dense thicket consisting mainly of hazel bushes. Measuring from behind mortuary, where slope is fairly gradual, to stream bank (which is some 19 inches higher than bottom of stream), vertical differential is about 5 feet. All along bottom of stream and throughout thicket, even at densest point, we found stone fragments, ranging in size from smaller than a potato to larger than a human head; these were apparently left in area at various times by mason who makes grave markers for cemetery.
“Condition of corpse: In addition to what is already noted in detailed report of postmortem examination (attached), N.B. Observation of extremities revealed no signs of rigor mortis although its presence was ascertained by undertaker the day before yesterday. Since reversal could not have been effected normally in such a short time (ordinarily rigor mortis does not set in until 15-16 hours after death), someone must have impeded its development.”
Sheppard looked up at Gregory.
“Do you know anything about rigor mortis, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, of course, sir. I made a special point of checking all this with the experts. Rigor mortis can be interrupted by the application of force, after which it either does not return or returns in a much weaker form.”
Sheppard put the report down.
“Have you arrived at any conclusions?” he asked.
“You mean about how the crime was committed?”
“What else?”
“The perpetrator must have sneaked into the mortuary even before Atkins went on duty,” said Gregory. “He hid there, either in a corner, behind the coffin, or in among the boards and ropes piled along the wall in the back. Around five o’clock he took the body out of the coffin, moved it to the window, and pushed out the windowpane. Williams heard the noise of the breaking glass, came over to take a look, and drew his pistol when he saw the broken glass and the open window. Meanwhile, the perpetrator had started pushing the corpse through the window. To Williams it looked as if the corpse was moving by itself. He panicked and started running. After Williams disappeared, the perpetrator climbed through the window and started dragging the corpse toward the door; apparently he then heard or saw something which frightened him, so he dropped the body and ran.”
“Which way?”
“It was around five-thirty, give or take a few minutes, just a little before daybreak. He followed the footpath to the edge of the thicket, made his way through the thicket without leaving footprints by stepping from stone to stone and along the Heavier branches, then lowered himself into the stream from an overhanging branch and, keeping to the water and stepping on stones wherever possible, headed in the direction of the railro
ad station.”
“Is that the whole thing?” Sheppard asked.
“No,” said Gregory. “There’s a variant. The perpetrator arrived on the scene by way of the stream at around four or a little after. Watching from the stream he waited until Williams was on the other side of the mortuary, then climbed up the slope through the thicket. Since the storm didn’t stop for another hour and a half, any footprints were soon covered by fresh snow. The perpetrator followed Williams along the footpath at a safe distance, then unhooked the door of the mortuary, went inside, and closed the door again. From then on he proceeded as in the first variant: took the body out of the coffin, pushed out the pane, attracted Williams’s attention, shoved the corpse through the window, and, when Williams ran away, dragged the corpse to the door, refastened the latch, and returned to the stream. But instead of going to the station, he followed the stream to the point where it passes under the expressway. His car was waiting there and he drove away.”
“Did you find anything on the expressway?”
“A few tire tracks, but nothing definite. Don’t forget that everything I’ve told you is still only conjectural — we can’t be sure of anything until we talk to Williams. If he remembers the door being closed, but without the lath in the latch, we’ll accept the second variant.”
“How is Williams doing?”
“Still unconscious. The doctors say his case will be settled in two or three more days, one way or the other.”
“Yes…” said Sheppard. “You’ll have to come up with a better reconstruction, otherwise we have only one alternative: ‘… and for fear of Him the keepers did shake…’ “
Gregory’s eyes wandered from the Chief Inspector’s face to his hands, which were resting motionlessly on the desk.
“Do you really think so?” he asked slowly.
“Gregory, I really wish you would think of me as your ally rather than your adversary. Try to put yourself in my place for a moment. Is my request really so funny?” Sheppard asked quietly, noticing that the lieutenant had begun to smile.
“No. I just remembered something. I also… anyway, it doesn’t really matter. If I were you, I’d still think the same way I do now. You can’t go through the wall if there’s no door.”
“Good. Let’s go over the first variant. The perpetrator, you said, sneaked into the mortuary sometime before the first constable went on duty at eleven o’clock. Here’s a floor plan of the mortuary. Show me where he could have hidden.”
“Here in the corner behind the big coffin, or in the opposite corner behind the boards.”
“Did you try any of these places yourself?”
“Well, more or less… You can get behind the big coffin, but it wouldn’t be much good as a hiding place if anyone shined a light in from the side. That’s why I say it must have been the boards. None of the guards made a systematic search of the mortuary; at best they only looked in through the door.”
“Good. Now, the corpse was stiff, so to get it through the window the perpetrator had to change its position, right?”
“Yes. And in the dark too. Then he had to break the window and drop the body out.”
“How did he manage to get the corpse’s footprint into the snow next to the wall?”
“I don’t think that would have been too hard for him.”
“You’re wrong, Gregory, it would have been extremely difficult. He had to do it without attracting Williams’s attention, but Williams had already been drawn to the scene by the sound of the breaking glass. From the perpetrator’s point of view, this must have been a damned critical moment. We can be certain that Williams wouldn’t have run away if he’d seen the perpetrator. Someone moving a corpse around wouldn’t have frightened him — after all, he knew very well that he’d been assigned to the mortuary to watch out for just that kind of thing. Maybe he would have used his pistol, maybe he would have tried to apprehend him without weapons, but he certainly wouldn’t have just run away. Do you see what I mean?”
Gregory was looking the Chief Inspector straight in the eye. Finally, with a brief gesture, he nodded his assent.
Sheppard continued.
“Now, if the corpse had fallen into the snow and the perpetrator was nowhere near the body — let’s say he was squatting behind the window and couldn’t be seen from outside — even then Williams wouldn’t have run away. He would have drawn his pistol and waited to see what happened next. He might have decided not to go inside, but he would have kept his eye on the door and the window. Whatever he did, though, he wouldn’t have run away. Do you go along with this also?”
Gregory nodded his head again, staring at the floor plan on the desk.
“We have the same problem with the second variant. None of it is very probable except the part about how the perpetrator got inside, since it doesn’t depend on him hiding behind the boards as suggested in variant one. The snow could certainly have covered his footprints as you said. Let’s continue. From this point on, according to both variants, the incident took the same course. After Williams ran away, the perpetrator left the mortuary, pulled the corpse over to the door, and then escaped by way of the bushes and the stream. But what was the purpose of dragging the body through the snow — and in point of fact he didn’t drag it at all, as we both know very well, but did something quite peculiar: he made it look as if a naked man had been crawling around on his hands and knees. Right?”
“Yes.”
“Why would he do something like that?”
“The situation is much worse than after our first conversation…” Gregory said, his tone quite different from what it had been until now, as if he had an unexpected secret to tell. “It was easy enough to get inside the mortuary if all the factors were taken into account. He could easily have followed the constable — it was a dark, windy night and it was snowing — once inside the mortuary he could have waited, let’s say, forty-five minutes or an hour, in order to let the snow cover his footprints. But as for the rest… I couldn’t help thinking for a while that he wanted to produce the very effect you mentioned; in fact, once I accepted the idea of someone trying to set up a situation that would force the police to believe there had been some kind of resurrection, I thought our investigation had come to the end of the line. But now we can’t even consider that theory anymore. The perpetrator moved the corpse but then left it at the scene. Maybe something frightened him away, but why did he leave the corpse in the snow? One look at the corpse is enough to prove that it didn’t come back to life. He must have known that, but even so he moved it, and in a way that made it appear as if it had moved itself. None of it makes any sense — not in criminal terms and not in terms of insanity.”
“Maybe he did get frightened away, as you said just a minute ago. Maybe he heard the approaching car.”
“Yes, he could even have seen it, but—”
“Seen it? How?”
“When you turn off the expressway for Pickering, your headlights — the expressway is on somewhat higher ground, you see — shine into the cemetery and light up the roof of the mortuary. I checked it last night.”
“Gregory, that’s important! If the perpetrator was frightened by the lights of a car, and if that’s what caused him to abandon the corpse, we may have our explanation. Furthermore, it would be his first blunder, his first failure to carry out a well-planned act. He panicked and dropped the corpse. Maybe he thought the police were coming. That should be the basis of your reconstruction… At any rate, it’s an out!”
“Yes, it’s an out,” Gregory admitted, “but… I can’t take a chance on it. We’re dealing with a man who studies weather reports and plans his actions in accordance with a complicated mathematical formula. He would certainly have known that the lights of a car coming around the turn from the expressway would light up the whole area for a moment, including the cemetery.”
“You seem to have a great deal of respect for him.”
“I do. And I absolutely refuse to believe that anything frightened
him away. An armed constable standing right there didn’t scare him. Would he have been afraid of a couple of headlights off in the distance?”
“Things like that happen. The straw that breaks the camel’s back… Maybe it took him by surprise. Maybe it confused him. You don’t think it’s possible? You’re smiling again? Gregory, you seem to be absolutely fascinated by this person. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up being… a disciple!”
“I suppose that’s a possibility,” said the lieutenant in a caustic tone of voice. He reached for the report but, discovering that his fingers were trembling, hid his hand under the table. “Maybe you’re right…” he said after a moment’s reflection. “I can’t help feeling that everything I found out there was exactly the way he wanted it to be; I don’t know — maybe I’m beginning to go crazy. Only… Williams wasn’t frightened by the corpse but by what was happening to it. Something happened to that body that made him panic. We may find out what it was, but will we ever know why…”
“There’s still the matter of the cat,” Sheppard mumbled as if talking to himself. Gregory lifted his head.
“Yes. And, to tell the truth, that’s a lucky break for me.”
“How do you mean that?”
“Right from the beginning this case has been characterized by a fantastic consistency — every incident has certain features in common with all the others — incomprehensible, perhaps, but definitely all following the same pattern. In other words, no matter how it looks, this business isn’t chaotic. It has to do with something real, although we haven’t the slightest idea of its purpose. Chief Inspector… I… even though, as you said, I myself…”
Uncertain whether he was making himself clear, Gregory began to feel nervous.
“I realize we can’t do anything except increase the surveillance. That is, we can’t do anything right now, but this case will come to a head once he uses up all his alternatives… He’s been relentlessly consistent so far, and one day we’ll turn that consistency against him. Sciss will help by telling us where to expect the next incident.”
The Investigation Page 10