by Rennie Airth
Madden rose. Skirting the body, he went to an inner door that stood open and paused on the threshold.
Billy joined him. In front of them was a hallway with a passage branching off it, running the length of the house. To their left, a trousered leg protruded from a doorway. Madden went towards it, walking in the middle of the carpeted passage, his eyes on the floor in front of him. Billy stayed on his heels.
They came to the body of a middle-aged man lying on his stomach with his arms outstretched in the shape of a cross. His head was twisted to one side, the lips drawn back in a rictus of agony. A stab wound in the middle of his back had left a dark stain in the checked hacking jacket he wore. Some deep internal injury was signalled by the gush of blood from his mouth on to the surrounding floorboards. At the very edge of the pool of dried blood, a curved indentation was visible.
'Do you see that?' Madden pointed. 'Someone's walked there.'
'One of the killers, sir?' Billy peered over his shoulder.
'I doubt it. The blood was already dry. Make a note for Mr Sinclair.'
Madden stepped carefully over the body. Billy followed, fumbling for his notepad. They were in an oak panelled study, furnished with a desk and two stuffed-leather armchairs. The walls were hung with photographs, mostly of men in military uniform. Some showed them sitting on chairs, stiffly posed. Others were less formal. There were pictures of polo matches and clay-pigeon shooting. Madden seemed more interested in a pair of shotguns mounted on a wall rack.
'Was he trying to reach one of those, I wonder?' He spoke the thought aloud.
'Or the telephone, sir?' Billy seized on the chance to participate. He indicated the instrument standing on the desk.
Madden grunted. He was still looking at the gun rack, frowning.
'Something's missing from the mantelpiece, sir.'
Billy tried again. He was feeling better. The smell was less strong in here. 'That mark on the wallpaper 'A clock, most likely.' Madden spoke without turning.
'There might have been other stuff up there.
Silver cups. The maid will know.'
He led the way out and walked back along the passage, checking each room as he came to it. He paused at only one, the dining-room, where plates and cutlery from the previous night's meal lay on the uncleared table.
At the far end of the corridor was a swing door.
The inspector pushed it open and went through. Billy, following on his heels, retched involuntarily and almost threw up as a pungent reek assailed his nostrils.
They were in the kitchen. The afternoon sun poured through unshaded windows on to a table where the remains of a roast chicken rested on a platter beside a glistening ham. As Madden approached, a cloud of flies rose into the air and then settled on the food again. Beyond the table a chair had been knocked over on its back and directly behind it a woman's body lay on the flagstoned floor, half propped against the wall.
Grey-haired, plump-featured, she was dressed in a bloodstained white blouse and an ankle-length skirt of dark blue material. Her face wore a surprised expression.
'The nanny,' Madden murmured. He glanced at Billy, who had chosen that moment to shut his eyes while he tried to control his heaving stomach. 'Give me your handkerchief, Constable.'
'Sir?' Billy's eyes shot open.
'You've got one, haven't you?'
'Sir!' He gave it to Madden, who wet the cloth at the sink and handed it back to Billy.
'Put that over your nose, son.'
'Please, sir, I don't need-'
'Do as I say.'
Without waiting to see if his order was carried out, the inspector crossed the room to where the body lay.
Brushing aside the flies he bent down and unfastened the blouse, drawing it apart. From where he was standing Billy could see the wound, neat as a buttonhole, between the tops of the veined breasts. Madden stayed staring at it for a long time. When he rose his eyes had that unseeing 'other world' look, and Billy was relieved. The damp mask across his nose made the stench in the kitchen bearable, but the handkerchief felt like a badge of shame. As soon as they were back in the passage he tugged it off.
They returned to the hallway and he followed Madden up the stairs to the floor above. When they came to a landing the inspector paused.
'Do you see?' he asked, pointing.
Billy peered into the shadows. Embedded in the pile of the wine-coloured stair carpet were tiny pinpricks of reflected light. 'What are they, sir?' he asked.
'Seed pearls. From a bracelet, I should think.
They've been trodden in. Watch your step."
At the top of the stairs there was another passage, like the one below, running the length of the house.
'Wait here,' Madden told Billy.
He walked down the corridor to his right, checking the rooms, and then returned to the stairway. At the first doorway on the other side he paused.
'Over here, Constable.'
The inspector's voice carried a note that gave Billy time to prepare himself. He walked the few steps to the door and followed Madden into the room. At first he could make nothing of the twilight gloom. The curtains, which must have been drawn the previous evening, still blocked out most of the daylight. Then, as his eyes grew accustomed to the half-darkness, he saw the body. Mrs Fletcher, Billy thought. The colonel's lady. (The painting in the drawing-room was fresh in his mind.) She was lying on her back on the bed, flung across it, it seemed, with her legs parted and her arms spread out, the fingers clenched. A silk dressing-gown of Oriental design, embroidered with red flowers and tied at the waist with a sash, was spread out on the bed on either side of her like a half opened fan. Her legs and the bottom of her stomach were bare. The sight of her pubic hair made Billy blush and turn away. He couldn't see her face — her head was hanging over the other side — but when he followed Madden around the foot of the bed he saw the fair hair cascading down.
'Keep clear,' Madden warned him sharply. 'There'll be blood on the floor.'
Billy was just wondering how the inspector knew that — could he see in the dark? — when the answer became clear. Staring down at the livid gash in the white column of flesh, he felt a sense of violation stronger than anything he had experienced that day.
'Why'd they do that?' Billy couldn't stop himself.
'Why'd they have to cut her throat?'
Boyce was waiting for them when they came out on to the terrace again. The sun was lower in the sky, the shadows lengthening.
'Mr Sinclair rang from Guildford,' he told Madden.
'He'll be here soon.'
'You can start the men searching the gardens.' The inspector lit a cigarette. 'But stay out of the woods for now.'
Boyce wondered what Madden had made of the shambles inside the house. He searched in vain for any hint in the dark, withdrawn eyes.
'You don't think they came that way, do you?'
The inspector shrugged. 'If they drove in the front gates, why come round to this side to break in? They could have knocked on the door.' To Billy, he said, 'Find that village bobby — what's his name?
Stackpole?'
Billy returned in a few minutes with a tall, moustached constable. Madden greeted him.
'Do you know these woods?' he asked.
'Well enough, sir.' Stackpole eyed him warily.
Word had spread about the Scotland Yard inspector who'd told the Lord Lieutenant where to get off.
'Come along, then. You too, Styles.'
A gravel path through the shrubbery at the bottom of the garden led to a wooden gate. On the other side of the wall they found a uniformed constable patrolling a small expanse of meadow grass bordering a shallow stream. He was a young man, not much older than Billy himself, and with similiar colouring — fair skin and reddish hair. His face was flushed by hours spent in the broiling sun.
'Excuse me, sir.' He hurried over to them.
'What is it, Constable?'
Madden had paused to take off his hat and jacket and hang th
em on the gate. When he rolled up his sleeves Billy saw a random pattern of scars spread over his forearm the size and shape of sixpences.
'A footprint, sir. Down by the stream. I noticed it earlier.'
'Show me.'
The constable led the way down the gently sloping bank. He pointed. 'There, sir, next to the steppingstones.
Coming this way.' The stream, diminished by weeks of drought, had shrunk to half its normal size. The earlier course of the water was marked by a surface of smooth dried mud. It was on this that the faint imprint of a footmark showed beside one of a line of flat stones crossing the stream. Madden nodded his approval.
'Well spotted, Constable.'
'Thank you, sir.'
'Go up to the house. My compliments to Mr Boyce and ask him to send a couple of men down here with some plaster-of-paris. Tell him the footprint's shallow but well defined and if they're careful they should get a good cast of it.'
'Right away, sir.' The constable set off briskly.
Madden went down on his haunches. Stackpole joined him, squinting at the stream bed.
'He might have missed his footing, sir. Coming across last evening, just as it was getting dark.'
'Big man.' The inspector frowned. 'Size eleven, I should say. That looks like a boot mark.'
Stackpole pursed his lips. "Course, it could be anyone's.'
Billy felt the prick of envy. First the young constable.
Now the village bobby!
Madden led them across the stepping-stones to the opposite bank. Almost at once they were in the wood, moving uphill through a stand of saplings that ended when they came to the tall beeches. A sea of fern and brush covered the ground on either side of the path, which was well used and easy to follow. The air was hot and still.
'Do the villagers come up here often?' Madden spoke over his shoulder.
'A fair bit, sir.' Stackpole kept pace with the inspector's long stride. 'Time was when the whole hanger was a shoot, but that was before the war. Now his lordship only has two keepers and they don't come over this way, except once in a while.'
Panting at the rear, trying to keep up with them, Billy had to watch for branches whipping back in his face. When he caught the cuff of his jacket in a bramble thicket, the constable paused to help disentangle him. He was grinning under his helmet. 'City boy,' he whispered.
Billy flushed a deeper red. He saw that Madden was watching them from above, hands on hips.
The hill steepened as they neared the top of the ridge. Madden stopped. He sniffed the air. 'Constable?'
'Yes, sir. I smell it…'
Stackpole cast about him with narrowed eyes. Billy caught a whiff of something. They were in the middle of a steeply sloping forest of pines. The carpet of ferns stretched unbroken on either side of them.
'Can't tell which way the wind's blowing,' the constable complained.
'Quiet!' Madden spoke sharply.
They stood in silence. Billy heard a low rustle in the undergrowth away to their left. Madden picked up a stick and threw it. A raucous cry broke the stillness, followed by the flapping of black wings as a pair of crows rose from the ground and flew off, threading a path through the lofty pines.
Madden and Stackpole looked at each other.
'Let's take a look,' the inspector said.
Madden left the path and began wading through the waist-high ferns. Keeping his eye fixed on the spot where the crows had appeared, he worked his way up and across the slope. Stackpole stayed close behind.
Billy, struggling in the rear as before, lost his footing on the steep slope and had to grab at a root to keep himself from sliding down. His hat fell off. He caught it with his other hand. For a moment he lay spreadeagled like a starfish on the hillside. The others paused and looked back.
'It's all right, sir,' Billy gasped. 'I'm coming.' He could see Stackpole chuckling.
By the time he caught up with them they had stopped and were standing with their backs to him looking down. Madden held out a hand to check Billy's puffing uphill progress. The young constable saw they were at the edge of an area where the undergrowth had been flattened. The body of a small white dog lay on the ground in front of them. Beyond it was the corpse of a man, clad in a soiled cloth coat.
He lay on his back with his head pointing down the slope. His hands, clutching at his chest, had torn apart his blood-soaked shirt. Where his eyes had been there were only pits. Billy blenched at the sight of the sockets, filled with congealed blood.
'Do you know him, Constable?' Madden's tone was detached.
'Yes, sir.' Stackpole, too, had paled. 'Name of Wiggins. James Wiggins. He's from the village.'
'What would he be doing up here?'
'Poaching, most likely.' The constable mopped his brow. 'That coat of his has got the deepest pockets in the county. Like as not we'll find a bird in one of them. Must have come across here from his lordship's shoot to dodge the keepers.' He pointed a finger at the dog. 'That's Betsy, Jimmy's bitch. Wonderful nose for a pheasant, or so Jimmy always said.'
'You've had dealings with him?'
'You could say that.' Stackpole grunted. 'He's been up before the bench. But not nearly as often as he should have. Hard man to lay a hand on.' The constable bit his lip. 'Poor Jimmy. I always said he'd come to a bad end.'
Madden was peering at the ground in front of them.
Something had caught his eye. He bent down and slipped his hand into the trampled ferns, then withdrew it holding a cigarette stub delicately between his fingertips. He held it up to the light.
'Three Castles. One of his?'
'Not likely. Pipe and a tin of Navy Cut — that was Jimmy's style.' Stackpole's brow was knotted in a frown. 'Sir, I don't see how this could have happened.'
Madden, occupied with folding the stub into a handkerchief, glanced at him questioningly.
'I just can't see anyone creeping up on Jimmy. You wouldn't have got within twenty feet of him. If he didn't spot you, the bitch would have.'
Madden put the handkerchief carefully into his trouser pocket. He said, 'I think it was the other way round.'
'Sir?'
The inspector turned so that he was facing down the slope. The others followed the direction of his glance. Melling Lodge lay directly below them, clearly visible through a gap in the pine forest. Billy could make out a group of men in plain clothes standing on the terrace. A line of blue uniforms moved slowly across the sunlit lawn.
'I think whoever killed them was sitting here, waiting for dark.'
Stackpole nodded slowly, comprehending. 'Betsy would have picked up their scent,' he said. 'Come looking to see who it was.' He touched the small body with the toe of his boot. A thin trickle of blood had dried on the white jaw. 'When she was stabbed she must have squealed, kicked up a racket, and Jimmy came running.'
Madden was frowning. 'I didn't see a dog at the lodge,' he said. 'Did the Fletchers have one?'
'Yes, sir, Rufus. An old Labrador. But he died not long ago.'
Leaving Billy posted by the body, Madden and the constable returned to the path. The inspector wanted to climb to the top of the ridge. It took only a few minutes, the pines thinning out as they scaled the stony crest. On the other side was a vista of farms and woodland stretching for miles. In the distance, hazy in the afternoon light, they could just make out the blurred contours of the South Downs.
Not far from the base of the ridge a cluster of cottages stood with a square church tower in the middle.
'That's Oakley, sir,' Stackpole said, without prompting. 'I was born there.'
Madden pointed to a narrow track that led from the hamlet through fields of ripening corn to the edge of the woods beneath them.
'Could you get a car along there?'
The constable shook his head. 'Tractor, maybe. Car springs wouldn't take the ruts.'
They went back down the path and crossed the slope to where Billy was standing by Wiggins's body.
Madden paused for only a moment. 'Stay
off the flattened area,' he told the young constable. 'It needs to be searched. I'll be sending some men up.'
Billy felt his cup of bitterness brim over. The inspector had finally found something he was fit for.
To stand watch over a body until others came to do the police work.
'Isn't there something I can do, sir?'
'Yes, keep the crows off him,' Madden called back as he hastened away. 'They go for the eyes.'
Stackpole clapped him on the shoulder sympathetically as he went by. 'Not yours, lad,' he said, with a wink.
Chief Inspector Sinclair drew Madden aside, leading him down the shallow steps from the terrace on to the now deserted lawn. They made an oddly contrasting pair: Madden, tall and rumpled, with his jacket slung over his shoulder; Sinclair, slight and no more than medium height, almost the dandy in his tailored pinstripe suit and soft felt hat. They stood close together, casting a single shadow in the dying sunlight.
'A question. Have we any idea what we're dealing with here?' The chief inspector's restless glance took in the squad of uniformed police who had moved off the grass and were searching the shrubbery at the bottom of the garden. At Madden's behest he had just dispatched two CID sergeants to deal with the body in the woods. 'An armed gang, I'm told, a robbery gone wrong.' He nodded towards the terrace where Boyce and Chief Inspector Norris stood watching them. 'In that case, perhaps someone would explain to me why there's stuff in the house in plain view worth more than what was taken. Did you see the china in the drawing-room? And that brace of Purdeys on the gun rack? Good of them not to loot the place, wouldn't you say? Especially since they had all night to do it.' Angus Sinclair's consonants had the precision of cut glass. A native of Aberdeen, he'd been a policeman for more than thirty years. 'Your thoughts, John?'
Madden lit a cigarette before replying. Sinclair studied his face. He noted familiar signs of strain and deep-seated fatigue in the dark, shadowed eyes. They were aspects of Madden he had come to recognize, souvenirs of the war, as permanent and unalterable as the scar on his forehead.
'Starting with the door, sir,' Madden's deep voice rose little above a murmur, 'why break it down? It wasn't locked. Then the victims' hands and arms.