They Walk in Darkness

by Gerald Verner

  ‘And the police haven’t done a thing about it,’ put in April, angrily. ‘Not a thing . . .’

  ‘That’s hardly fair, my dear,’ remonstrated Doctor Culpepper. ‘They’ve done everything they possibly could do . . .’

  ‘Well, it hasn’t done very much good, has it?’ said Anthony. ‘They haven’t caught the brute, whoever it is, who’s responsible?’

  ‘It’s not such an easy matter,’ said Doctor Culpepper. ‘I’m not holding any brief for the police, but I have had several chats with Superintendent Odds about it, and it’s quite easy to realize his difficulty. There’s very little doubt that these horrible atrocities are the work of a homicidal maniac, which means that the normal motive is lacking. This monster kills for the sheer lust of killing . . .’

  ‘Colonel Shoredust should have called in Scotland Yard,’ remarked Laura Courtland, languidly. ‘Father said that a long time ago.’

  ‘Could Scotland Yard have done anything better?’ replied Doctor Culpepper, doubtfully.

  ‘It couldn’t have done anything worse,’ snapped April. ‘And you must admit that, at least, it probably has more experience . . .’

  ‘In ordinary crime, perhaps,’ agreed Doctor Culpepper. ‘But I very much doubt whether it would have been more successful in this case. However, I should imagine that Shoredust will be forced to call in help sooner or later.’

  ‘When all the children in the village have been butchered, I suppose?’ said April, sarcastically. ‘It’ll be a little late then, won’t it?’

  ‘Isn’t there any suspicion against anybody?’ asked Peter, cutting in to prevent the heated argument which looked likely to develop. Doctor Culpepper hesitated and then shook his head.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘At one time the police did, I believe, have some idea that a fellow called Twist might be responsible, but . . .’

  ‘Oh, I’m quite sure they’re wrong,’ broke in Miss Wymondham with conviction. ‘Poor Twist wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s never been — well, ‘all there’ as people call it, but he’s quite harmless. I can’t think of anyone in the village who would be capable of such a dreadful thing . . .’

  ‘That, of course,’ said Doctor Culpepper, ‘is the whole trouble. Except for this abnormal and terrible kink the person concerned is, no doubt, quite normal and ordinary in every respect. Just like anybody else. He may not even be aware of what he has done. That is sometimes part of the symptoms in these cases . . .’

  April Sherwood gave a little shiver as though a cold draught had struck her.

  ‘It’s rather horrible that, isn’t it?’ she muttered. ‘To think that it might be somebody we all know and . . . and are friendly with . . .’

  She stopped as Hewson removed the soup plates and served them with fish.

  ‘If it wouldn’t harrow anybody too much,’ said Peter, ‘I’d like a more detailed account of these outrages. I’m not asking out of morbid curiosity. The psychological aspect interests me.’ He caught his wife’s eye as he finished speaking and, from the momentary expression he surprised, came to the conclusion that she, at least, was not completely satisfied with this explanation for his curiosity. ‘Didn’t you mention something about lambs, Doctor Culpepper?’

  The doctor nodded and swallowed the portion of turbot he had been masticating.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘In my opinion that is how it all began. Several lambs were stolen, not all at the same time, but with various intervals in between, and were later found dead with their throats cut.’

  ‘And you believe that this was the prelude to the baby murders?’

  ‘Yes. I believe it was a sort of rehearsal, if you can put it like that.’

  ‘It seems rather extraordinary to me,’ Peter went on, frowning slightly, ‘that if this maniac was out to kill, he didn’t kill at once. Why do you imagine he took his victims away and killed them later?’

  Doctor Culpepper shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘There’s no accounting for a deranged mind,’ he answered. ‘It’s no good expecting anything logical, you know. At the same time there may be an explanation in the fact that it was too risky to carry out his intention on the spot.’

  ‘Perhaps that might apply in the case of the children,’ said Peter, thoughtfully. ‘But surely not in the case of the lambs? However, I suppose as you say it’s useless looking for reason in a maniac. You said another child disappeared today?’

  ‘Little Joan Coxen,’ said Doctor Culpepper. ‘She was playing in the snow in the garden of her mother’s cottage. When her mother went to call her in for tea she wasn’t there . . . She hasn’t been seen since . . .’

  There was a sudden hush round the table. Peter’s eyes caught Ann’s and saw in them a look of horrified incredulity. Miss Wymondham was slowly shaking her head and making clicking noises with her tongue. Anthony Sherwood was silently engaged in dissecting a portion of fish, or appeared to be. His wife was staring at his bent head with her pretty face set and rigid. Laura Courtland gave a fluttering sigh, as if she had been holding her breath, and leaned back in her chair. Only Doctor Culpepper went on eating his fish. And then the telephone in the hall began to ring . . .

  Chapter Five

  The telephone bell went on ringing and then ceased abruptly as somebody lifted the receiver. There was the sound of a muffled voice and, presently, heralded by a discreet tap on the door, Hewson entered.

  ‘Doctor Culpepper is required on the telephone, madam,’ he said.

  The doctor wiped his lips hastily with his napkin, dropped it beside his plate, and with a muttered apology, got up and hurried out.

  ‘I wonder who that can be?’ murmured Miss Wymondham, speculatively, turning her head towards the door.

  ‘The call was from the doctor’s residence, madam,’ said Hewson from the sideboard.

  ‘Well, it must have been very urgent for them to have disturbed him here,’ remarked Miss Wymondham, obviously consumed with curiosity. ‘Did they say why he was wanted, Hewson?’

  ‘No, madam,’ replied the old man. ‘Are you ready for the entrée?’

  ‘Not quite,’ said his mistress. ‘Do you think?’ she addressed the table in general, ‘it could be any news of . . . little Joan Coxen?’

  ‘I should say it was more probably a patient,’ answered Peter. ‘However, if you possess your soul in patience, Aunt Helen, perhaps Doctor Culpepper will tell you himself.’

  Doctor Culpepper did a few seconds later. He came back with a grave and serious face.

  ‘I’m afraid I shall have to go,’ he informed them. ‘It’s unfortunate, but one of the many drawbacks to my profession. Mrs. Coxen has been taken seriously ill . . .’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ said Miss Wymondham, looking really distressed. ‘Poor soul, I suppose it’s the strain and worry . . .’

  ‘Yes, I think it is,’ agreed the doctor. ‘They tell me that she has developed a high temperature and is delirious . . .’

  ‘Has any news been received of the child?’ asked Peter.

  Doctor Culpepper shook his head.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘The search is still going on, of course, but I doubt if there will be any further news until they find her — as they found the others.’

  He took a brief farewell of everybody, apologized once more to Miss Wymondham, and departed to give what succour he could to the unfortunate woman who had broken down under the tragedy of her loss.

  The rest of the evening was not very cheerful for any of them, in spite of Miss Wymondham’s valiant attempts to make it so. Such gaiety as she tried to infuse was only on the surface, and its thin crust kept breaking, letting through the cracks writhing tentacles from the ugly monster that lurked at the root of all their minds. And it was ugly, thought Peter, as he tried to keep up a desultory conversation with the others: ugly and beastly and utterly horrible, this spiriting away and slaughtering of lambs and little children. The terrible and perverted amusement of a mad brain that yet went to work so cleverly and cunningly that eighteen months o
f searching had failed to discover to whom it belonged. Somewhere among this community of Jekyll’s was an unknown Hyde, outwardly indistinguishable from his fellows, but inwardly suffering, either knowingly or unknowingly, from an unquenchable blood-lust that he strove at intervals to slake. The knowledge was horrifying to Peter, who had only become aware of it in the last few hours. How much more horrifying must it be to the people of Fendyke St. Mary, who had lived in its shadow for all these months? The dread must be with them day and night, particularly those who had children. Anthony Sherwood’s remark at dinner was understandable. There must be many who felt the same. Surely the police could have done something in all that time to bring the person responsible to book? It was all very well for Doctor Culpepper to make repeated assurances that they had done all they could, and to point out the difficulties which beset them, but Peter rather sympathized with April’s attitude. Without minimizing any of the difficulties, the result had, from what he had heard, not redounded to their credit. He made a resolve to go more thoroughly into the whole thing. It was gripping his interest and he wanted to know all the details. After all, he and Ann were due to stay with Aunt Helen for a month, and for that period, at least, he would be part and parcel of this little community. Perhaps he might be able to do something to lift the pall of horror which lay over it. It would be well worth trying, anyhow, and he had succeeded in finding out the truth about that other affair at Bishop’s Thatcham in the summer of the previous year. It would add a fillip and a zest to his holiday, at any rate, and supply the necessary mental stimulant that he needed. It was over a month since he had completed his latest novel and his mind was barren of any ideas for the next. Working on this problem might give his stagnant brain just the tonic it required. It appealed to him strongly for, apart from any other consideration, this wholesale murder of helpless children had roused him to a cold anger against the person responsible, homicidal maniac notwithstanding, and it would give him the greatest satisfaction to put a stop to his dreadful activities.

  So Peter’s thoughts ran in an undercurrent to the polite surface conversation which he forced himself to make.

  The party broke up comparatively early. Laura Courtland was the first to go, pleading that she ought to return to her father in case he needed her. They all realized that it was the flimsiest of excuses, but nobody made any real effort to persuade her to stay. Anthony Sherwood and April left very shortly after, and, when they were alone, Miss Wymondham broke into a flood of apologies.

  ‘I’m so sorry, my dears,’ she said. ‘I did so want your first evening here to be cheerful and happy, but I’m dreadfully afraid it was nothing of the sort. Such a dismal atmosphere, I’m really quite relieved that the evening is over. But, of course, you couldn’t expect anything else with this terrible thing hanging over all of us, and poor little Joan Coxen being spirited away. I do wish, though, that it hadn’t happened today of all days. It would have been so nice if we could have had a really jolly evening . . .’ and so on ad infinitum.

  Poor Miss Wymondham was so genuinely distressed that her well-meant efforts to entertain them had not been successful that both Ann and Peter did their utmost to reassure her. But the old lady was too disappointed to be pacified by anything they said, and she was still apologizing volubly when they parted for the night and went to bed.

  Chapter Six

  ‘Peter,’ said Ann, sitting up in bed and thoughtfully watching her husband as he pottered restlessly about the bedroom and got slowly undressed by easy stages, ‘I believe the detective fever has bitten you again.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’ he demanded.

  ‘Oh, various signs and portents,’ she replied. ‘I thought so earlier this evening when we first heard about this horrible business.’

  ‘Well,’ said Peter, undoing the studs in the front of his shirt and then pausing uncertainly as though rather vague about what he would do next. ‘Well . . . it did occur to me that since we are here for a month I might . . . well, look into the matter . . .’

  ‘I guessed as much,’ said Ann, her eyes twinkling. ‘So this is where I resume my well-known role of Watson, is it?’

  ‘You’ve been promoted since then,’ retorted Peter. ‘Besides, I didn’t actually say that I was going to . . .’

  ‘You don’t have to actually say anything, darling,’ broke in his wife. ‘Not to me, at any rate. The symptoms are very obvious.’ Her face clouded and she suddenly became serious. ‘It’s rather beastly, isn’t it, Peter?’ she said in an altered voice. He nodded, fiddling with his braces.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A very nasty, unpleasant business. Anything that has to do with an unbalanced brain is always peculiarly horrible, I think.’

  ‘There’s no doubt, I suppose, that that is what’s at the bottom of it?’ said Ann.

  ‘I shouldn’t think there was any,’ answered Peter, reaching for his dressing-gown and pyjamas. ‘What makes you say that?’

  She gave a slight twitch to her bare shoulders.

  ‘Nothing in particular,’ she said. ‘It just occurred to me, that’s all . . .’

  ‘I don’t see how there could be anything like that — any planned motive, I mean,’ said Peter, thoughtfully. ‘It’s not that type of crime at all. If it were it would be far easier. Find the motive and you’ve found the murderer. No, I think it must be a maniac . . .’

  He disappeared into the bathroom, and Ann was almost asleep when he came back in pyjamas and dressing-gown and carrying the remainder of his clothes over his arm. She moved drowsily as he slid into bed beside her and lay staring up at the ceiling.

  ‘Aren’t you going to put the light out, darling?’ she murmured. ‘I’m so tired . . .’

  He reached out an arm and turned the switch of the bedside lamp, but although he, too, was tired, it was a long time before he fell asleep. The glow of the dying fire filled the room with a rosy gloom, and on this background his imagination painted vivid pictures which, as he drifted into sleep, became broken and nightmarish dreams, dominated by a great shapeless figure that loomed menacingly through a swirling, smoky fog: a figure that was dreadful and obscene and utterly and incredibly evil . . .

  Chapter Seven

  Colonel Shoredust was tired and a little irritable. Superintendent Odds was tired and more than a little irritable. Sergeant Quilt was tired and more irritable than either of his superiors, though his position prevented him from showing it as much as they did. He came to the irate conclusion, not by any means for the first time, that Colonel Shoredust was a pompous, incompetent old nincompoop. Colonel Shoredust was convinced beyond all shadow of doubt that both Superintendent Odds and Sergeant Quilt were incompetent, wooden-headed, blundering jackasses. They sat in Fendyke St. Mary’s small, rural police station, with the chill November dawn turning the windows to a ghostly grey, and the setting, even under the most salubrious conditions, was not conducive to cheerfulness. The converted cottage was small and cramped, large enough for Police Constable Cropps, who lived there and was usually its sole occupant, but quite inadequate for the conference which was at present being held there. In the white light from the broken gas mantle, Colonel Shoredust looked yellow, with bulging, jaundiced eyes under which folds of skin hung loosely. His moustache, usually trim and jaunty, drooped wearily and there was a white stubble on his chin and heavy jowls.

  Superintendent Odds, dishevelled, dirty, and dejected, slumped in a horsehair chair and moodily tugged at his lower lip, pulling it down and letting it flip up against its fellow with monotonous regularity. His short, greying hair was untidy, and his boots and trousers were wet and muddy. Sergeant Quilt, since there was no chair for him to sit on, leaned against the mantelpiece, the picture of physical and mental weariness, his round, fullish face an unhealthy grey and, although it was cold, faintly dewed with sweat. All three had been up all night and looked it.

  ‘For God’s sake stop that!’ grunted the Chief Constable, crossly. ‘Blasted silly habit.’

  Superintendent O
dds stopped plucking at his lip. He thrust his hand into the pocket of his overcoat but made no reply. Sergeant Quilt yawned widely and long. Colonel Shoredust shifted restlessly in his chair behind the battered desk.

  ‘There’s going to be a damned lot of trouble about this, you know,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, sir, I know,’ said Odds, tonelessly.

  ‘We’ve got to find this child before anything happens to her,’ went on the Chief Constable. ‘We’ve got to. There’s going to be a hell of a row if we don’t.’

  The superintendent shrugged his shoulders. Why did the old fool keep harping on that, he thought, irritably. As if he didn’t know. Aloud he said:

  ‘What more can we do, sir? Every available man we can muster is out searching for her. And we’ve roped in a lot of volunteers as well. They’ve been searching ever since we got the news. Sergeant Quilt and I have been searching half the night, too. If you can suggest anything else, sir . . .’ He stopped and looked at Colonel Shoredust expectantly.

  The Colonel met the look for a second or two, and then his eyes shifted.

  ‘Blast it,’ he said, ‘what is there to suggest?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir,’ said Odds, wearily. ‘But if you’re dissatisfied . . .’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, man,’ broke in the Chief Constable, impatiently. ‘Aren’t we all damned-well dissatisfied? Look here, this is the fifth of the blasted disappearances in eighteen months and we’re no nearer finding the feller who’s responsible than we were when we started. If the sequel to this one is like the others, that poor bloody kid’s going to be found stuck somewhere with her throat cut, and we shan’t be any nearer finding who did it . . .’

  ‘The trouble is there’s nothing to go on,’ said Superintendent Odds. ‘You can’t search for a motive because we already know the only one there can be, and it doesn’t help us. We know we’ve got a lunatic to deal with . . .’