They Walk in Darkness

by Gerald Verner

  Doctor Culpepper, looking rather tired and grave, said nothing at all, and Superintendent Odds gave all his attention to driving. Twice Sergeant Quilt remarked ‘yes, sir,’ but it sounded purely mechanical, and Ann was quite certain that he had only the vaguest idea of what the Colonel had said.

  Peter hailed them from the porch, when at last they drew up outside the cottage, with a warning to be careful of the footprints in the snow. They joined him, and he gave them a brief but more detailed account of the discovery which he and Ann had made.

  ‘I recognized Miss Courtland because I met her at dinner last night at my aunt’s,’ he concluded. ‘But I don’t know who the other three people are. No doubt you will be able to identify them.’

  He led the way into the narrow passage and the others crowded behind him. Colonel Shoredust looked into the room through the open door, and expelled his breath sharply through his teeth with a sound like the sudden escape of steam. Superintendent Odds uttered a little strangled grunt. Sergeant Quilt made no sound at all, but his eyes stared fixedly as though he had been hypnotized. Doctor Culpepper, peering between Odds and the Chief Constable, pursed his lips and frowned.

  ‘Rather ghastly, isn’t it?’ said Peter.

  For a long moment none of them answered him, and then Colonel Shoredust gave a shuddering sigh.

  ‘Horrible,’ he muttered. ‘Horrible!’

  ‘Horrible, and also very extraordinary,’ said Doctor Culpepper, still frowning into the room. ‘Laura Courtland, Robin Mallory, Fay Bennett and André Severac. What could have induced them to come here in the first place . . .?’

  ‘You can identify these people, sir?’ asked the superintendent.

  The doctor nodded a trifle impatiently.

  ‘Yes, yes, I know them all quite well,’ he answered.

  ‘The fifth person is the most important to identify, I think,’ said Peter, softly. ‘The person who occupied the vacant place at the head of the table.’

  ‘Perhaps nobody occupied it,’ grunted Colonel Shoredust.

  ‘Then who,’ said Peter, with a gesture towards the table, ‘was responsible for that?’

  ‘There’s no absolute proof that it was murder, is there, sir?’ said Superintendent Odds. ‘These people may have committed suicide . . .’

  ‘A sort of pact, eh?’ broke in the Chief Constable. ‘Now that’s poss . . .’

  ‘Look at their faces,’ interrupted Peter, curtly. ‘Do they look as if they had expected to die?’

  Colonel Shoredust looked, and very quickly looked away again.

  ‘They received some kind of shock just before they died,’ went on Peter. ‘Something so unexpected and horrible that its effect remained stamped on their faces . . .’

  ‘You’re not suggesting that they died of fright, are you?’ said the Chief Constable, and Peter shook his head.

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘I think they were poisoned.’

  ‘The doctor’ll be able to tell us about that,’ put in Superintendent Odds, practically. ‘Will you make your examination, sir, and then we can get busy . . .’

  Doctor Culpepper squeezed past Colonel Shoredust and entered the room. He carefully examined each of the grotesque figures at the table, peered at the remains of the food on the plates, and sniffed at the wine in the glasses.

  ‘I think Mr. Chard is right,’ he remarked, when he had finished. ‘These people have undoubtedly been poisoned. The poison was administered in the wine, I believe, and, judging from the leaden, bluish tinge of their skins, I should say that it was some form of cyanide, probably potassium cyanide. I cannot be more definite than that until after the post-mortem, and an analysis has been made of the wine.’

  ‘At what time did death take place, sir?’ asked the superintendent, and Doctor Culpepper pursed his lips.

  ‘Somewhere in the region of midnight,’ he answered after a pause. ‘Certainly not later than two o’clock this morning. I’m afraid it’s impossible to be more exact than that. The conditions are difficult. Last night’s intense cold would make a difference to the advance of rigor mortis and other signs . . .’

  ‘But we can take it that it happened between twelve o’clock and two o’clock in the morning?’ said Odds.

  ‘Yes,’ Doctor Culpepper nodded. ‘Nearer twelve than two would be my personal opinion.’

  ‘And this poison you mentioned — would that act quickly?’

  ‘Very quickly,’ answered Doctor Culpepper. ‘It would only be a matter of minutes, depending, of course, to a great extent on the quantity administered. By the appearance of the bodies I should say the quantity was quite large.’

  ‘Blasted queer business,’ muttered Colonel Shoredust, rubbing his nose. ‘What was the idea of coming here to have a meal? Damned unpleasant place. Can’t understand it.’

  His remark was received in silence.

  Superintendent Odds had begun methodically exploring the room for anything that might help to explain this nightmare party. When he had finished with the room he went through the pockets of the two overcoats hanging on the nail by the fireplace. From one he brought out a white silk handkerchief, a pair of gloves, and a packet of cigarettes. From the other a box of matches, another pair of gloves, and a bunch of keys. That was all. The pockets in the dead men’s clothing yielded another bunch of keys and the normal articles that might be expected.

  ‘Nothing helpful at all, sir,’ he said, disappointedly, looking at the Chief Constable. ‘Maybe there’s something here.’ He picked up one of the two small evening handbags that lay beside the plates of the dead women, and carefully emptied it. It proved to contain nothing except the usual flapjack, lipstick, handkerchief, and purse. The other, which had belonged to Laura Courtland, was also devoid of anything unusual or interesting. Odds sighed, and put the bags gently down.

  ‘Well, that’s that,’ he remarked. ‘Absolutely nothing. The ambulance should be here soon, and then, if you agree, doctor, the bodies can be removed.’

  Doctor Culpepper nodded.

  ‘There’s no reason why not,’ he said. ‘I shall want the wine, you know. Both what remains in the glasses and the bottles as well.’

  ‘I’ll attend to that, sir,’ said the superintendent. The light was beginning to fade. The shadows in the corners of the room were spreading and thickening. ‘I’ll just have a look through the rest of this place,’ Odds went on, ‘and then see if those prints in the snow outside can tell us anything.’

  ‘You’ll find mine and my wife’s mixed up with them,’ said Peter, ‘just to make it more difficult . . .’

  ‘How’s that, sir?’ asked the superintendent sharply. ‘I understood that you had been careful not to . . .’

  ‘The prints I am referring to,’ explained Peter, ‘were made yesterday afternoon . . .’ He told the interested Odds about their visit to the cottage during their enforced walk to Fendyke St. Mary.

  ‘Oh, I see, sir,’ said Odds, looking as though he did nothing of the kind. ‘What made you come back here this afternoon?’

  ‘That was my idea,’ put in Ann. ‘My husband’s aunt, Miss Wymondham, was telling us about the history of the place — this cottage, I mean — and I was curious to see it again . . .’

  ‘When we were here yesterday there were no other footprints but our own,’ said Peter. ‘When we saw all these others, today, leading to the door of an empty cottage, which we had been given to understand had an evil reputation, and which people were supposed to avoid like the plague, we were naturally curious.’

  The superintendent’s face cleared and he nodded understandingly.

  ‘I see, sir,’ he said again, and this time he sounded as if he meant it. ‘Well, it shouldn’t be difficult to distinguish your prints, and Mrs. Chard’s, from these others. Come on, Quilt, let’s have a look at the rest of the place.’

  ‘You know,’ remarked Doctor Culpepper, thoughtfully, when Odds and the sergeant had disappeared into the rear of the cottage, ‘somebody went to an enormous amount of trouble.
I can’t quite see the purpose . . .’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ grunted Colonel Shoredust, frowning at him.

  ‘All this,’ said the doctor, waving a podgy hand round the darkening room. ‘All this china and glass and linen . . . It wasn’t here, you know. It had to be brought. And the food, too. That wasn’t cooked here. It was cooked elsewhere and heated up on that hot-plate . . .’

  ‘See what you mean,’ said the Chief Constable, fingering his moustache and nodding jerkily. ‘It’s da . . . er — dashed extraordinary . . .’

  ‘Do you think,’ said Ann, ‘that it could have been some kind of freak party?’

  ‘It was definitely a freak party,’ said Peter, a little grimly. ‘But what kind of freak party? What was the motive for killing all these people . . .?’

  ‘Must there be a motive?’ broke in Doctor Culpepper. ‘We already know there is a maniac killer in the district somewhere. Why shouldn’t this be his handiwork too?’

  Colonel Shoredust looked startled.

  ‘You’re not suggesting that . . . that this has anything to do with the other bl — beastly business?’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Why not?’ Doctor Culpepper’s shrewd black eyes surveyed him steadily through his spectacles. ‘You can’t call any of this sane, can you? A supper party in a dirty, cold, empty house, and four people poisoned? Can you think of anything more like the outcome of a deranged mind?’

  ‘It had occurred to me that it was an extension of the same thing,’ said Peter.

  ‘I don’t think there’s any doubt of it,’ declared Doctor Culpepper, emphatically.

  ‘Is there any news of the little girl?’ asked Ann, and the Chief Constable shook his head.

  ‘No,’ he answered, gloomily. ‘My men are still searching . . .’

  ‘You’ll have to do something, Shoredust,’ said Doctor Culpepper, curtly. ‘This can’t go on indefinitely, you know. The person responsible has got to be found and stopped.’

  ‘I had already decided to call in the assistance of Scotland Yard,’ answered Colonel Shoredust, stiffly. ‘I am telephoning this evening . . .’

  ‘I think you’re wise,’ said the doctor, shortly.

  Superintendent Odds and the sergeant returned from their excursion to the back at that moment and went noisily up the staircase. There was a silence. The Chief Constable was obviously resentful of the doctor’s criticism, although there was no gainsaying the truth of what he had said. Colonel Shoredust, thought Peter, may have been an admirable soldier, but he was very definitely not cut out for police work, or, at any rate, this kind of police work. He was probably quite capable of dealing with the ordinary normal routine cases that came his way, but this was something different. This required to be handled with imagination and brains, and Shoredust was evidently quite devoid of the former, and only very sparingly supplied with the latter. Neither did Odds and the sergeant impress Peter as being very intelligent men. Plodding, painstaking, and conscientious, perhaps, but that was all. It had not occurred to any of them, apparently, to wonder how the four dead people had got here from Fendyke St. Mary, and, if they had come by car, what had happened to the car. He thought that it was a very wise decision indeed on the Chief Constable’s part to call in Scotland Yard. It seemed a great pity that he had not done so before.

  Odds and Sergeant Quilt came down from upstairs to report that they had found nothing. Armed with a shoe from each of the four dead people, they turned their attention to the tracks in the snow. Peter and Ann were called to identify theirs, and then returned to the porch to watch the proceedings with Doctor Culpepper and Colonel Shoredust. For twenty minutes or so, the superintendent and Quilt worked busily, comparing and sorting the confused jumble of prints, and when they had finished there was a puzzled look on their faces.

  ‘Excluding Mr. and Mrs. Chard’s, sir,’ said Odds to the Chief Constable, ‘there are four sets of prints, each made by one of the people in there.’ He jerked his head towards the open door of the cottage.

  ‘Only four sets?’ exclaimed Peter, incredulously. ‘Surely you must have made a mistake, superintendent . . .’

  Odds shook his head.

  ‘No, sir,’ he answered, ‘I haven’t. I’ve accounted for every footprint . . .’

  ‘But,’ cried Peter, ‘what about the person who occupied the fifth chair . . . The chair at the head of the table . . .?’

  The superintendent shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘There are only four sets,’ he repeated, emphatically. ‘There’s no track of any fifth person having come here at all, sir.’

  Chapter Three

  They stood in the rapidly gathering dusk of that cold November afternoon and stared at the smudged tracks in the snow that led from the gap in the low stone wall to the porch. For some time nobody spoke, and then Doctor Culpepper cleared his throat.

  ‘It looks,’ he remarked, ‘as if there hadn’t been a fifth person after all.’

  ‘But there must have been,’ exclaimed Peter. ‘You’ve seen those people in there? They are all staring at that empty chair at the head of the table . . .’

  ‘That doesn’t prove there was anybody in it,’ grunted Colonel Shoredust.

  ‘It does to me,’ answered Peter, quickly. ‘Their expressions prove it. They were looking at someone . . .’

  ‘Well, I don’t know how the ‘someone’ got here, sir,’ broke in Superintendent Odds, wearily. ‘There are only four sets of footprints, not counting yours and Mrs. Chard’s, and they were made by the four people in that room. I’d be willing to swear that anywhere . . .’

  ‘Couldn’t this . . . this other person have come a different way?’ suggested Ann, but the superintendent shook his head.

  ‘The only other way he could have got in is by the back,’ he said, ‘and the door is bolted on the inside. It’s covered with old spider’s webs, and I shouldn’t think it had been opened for years. The same thing applies to the window . . .’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any evidence to show that there was a fifth person,’ interrupted Colonel Shoredust. ‘In fact, what evidence there is, is to the contrary. The plate, and glass, haven’t been used in front of that chair. You can’t go by expressions. There was to have been a fifth person, but he, or she, didn’t turn up.’

  ‘Then who killed these people?’ asked Peter, bluntly.

  ‘Whoever it was didn’t necessarily have to be present,’ replied Shoredust. ‘This isn’t a shooting or stabbing affair. It’s a poisoning, and the poison could have been put in the wine before it was brought here. That’s only bla — blessed well sense, isn’t it?’ He appealed to Doctor Culpepper.

  ‘Yes, it could have happened like that,’ agreed the doctor.

  ‘There you are,’ said the Chief Constable, triumphantly. ‘This stuff cyanide acts d — dashed quickly, doesn’t it? Well then, when they’d drunk the wine and realized it was poisoned, they guessed who’d done it; the person who should have occupied the chair at the head of the table. That was their last thought before they died, an’ that’s why they are all looking at that empty place.’ He looked from one to the other for approbation for this astute explanation.

  ‘And who locked the door?’ said Peter, quietly. ‘The door was locked, and I had to break it open . . .’

  ‘Any one of them could have locked the door,’ said Colonel Shoredust, dismissing this objection with a summary gesture. ‘There’s nothing in that.’

  ‘There’s a great deal in it,’ retorted Peter. ‘Because if any of those four people had locked the door, the key would have been in the lock on the inside, or, at least, in the room. And it wasn’t, and it isn’t.’

  His words acted on Colonel Shoredust’s complacent satisfaction over his own theory like a sudden douche of ice-cold water. His thickish lips parted and his eyes became more prominent. Even he could see the force of this argument. None of those four people seated at the table could have locked the door on the outside and taken away the key, which meant that there must have be
en a fifth person in the cottage . . .

  ‘Those keys,’ he said, turning swiftly on Odds. ‘The two bunches you found . . . Does one of ’em fit the door?’

  The superintendent went inside and, after a short interval, came back shaking his head.

  ‘None of them fits the lock, sir,’ he said.

  ‘So it would appear,’ remarked Peter, rather pleased with himself, ‘that we are faced with two impossibilities from which to choose. (a) That in some mysterious fashion the door locked itself. (b) That there was a fifth person present who, in some equally mysterious fashion, was able to transport himself without leaving any tracks in the snow.’

  Superintendent Odds looked at Colonel Shoredust. Colonel Shoredust looked at Superintendent Odds. Peter looked at them both with what Ann told him later was ‘one of the most objectionable expressions of smug complacency that she had ever seen.’ He was enjoying himself hugely.

  ‘Wait a minute. Wait a minute,’ grunted the Chief Constable, having got, as it were, his second wind. ‘What about this, eh? Supposing this other person was already in the place? I mean supposing he came before the blas — before the snow stopped falling and stayed until the others arrived? How’s that, eh? The snow would have covered any tracks he made then . . .’

  ‘Oh,’ exclaimed Ann, suddenly. ‘Peter! Do you remember . . .? That queer feeling I had yesterday afternoon when we came here? As if somebody was watching . . .’

  ‘You thought there was somebody watching, eh?’ said Colonel Shoredust, pouncing on this confirmation of his idea with avidity. ‘You were probably right, madam. There was somebody in the place then, and . . .’

  ‘It’s no good, Colonel,’ said Peter, shaking his head. ‘Even if this person was in the house then, it doesn’t get over the difficulty.’