They Walk in Darkness

by Gerald Verner

  ‘Don’t ask me, darling,’ he said. ‘Belton is convinced that it was the Devil . . .’

  ‘It couldn’t have been the fifth person, could it?’ she said, wrinkling her brows.

  ‘Not unless you are prepared to admit that there’s a giant concealed somewhere in the district who can walk across snow without leaving a mark,’ said Peter. He lit a cigarette. ‘I met Anthony Sherwood as I left the garage,’ he went on. ‘He wants us to go and dine with them tomorrow evening. I said we would. Is that all right with you?’

  ‘Yes, if you think we ought to leave Aunt Helen,’ said Ann.

  ‘I’m sure she won’t mind,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll go along and see how she is . . .’

  Miss Wymondham was lying in bed, propped up with pillows, and knitting industriously. She greeted her nephew with obvious delight and burst into a flow of speech.

  ‘My dear, I can’t tell you how sorry I am that this should have happened just now,’ she said. ‘So stupid and inconvenient. I told Doctor Culpepper that it was perfectly ridiculous of him to insist on my staying in bed, but he was quite adamant about it. I’m sure it isn’t really necessary at all. However, it will only be for a day or two, and you mustn’t let it interfere with any of your arrangements. Ann has been so very sweet, my dear. I think you’re very lucky to have such a lovely and charming wife, Peter. She really is one of the dearest girls . . .’

  ‘I entirely agree with you,’ said Peter. ‘That’s why I married her.’

  ‘And so you ought,’ said Miss Wymondham, searching under her pillows for a handkerchief. ‘Oh, dear, how very unpleasant a cold can be . . . I feel exactly as if my head was stuffed with suet pudding and hot pudding, too. Such a nasty sensation, my dear . . . Now sit down and tell me all about everything . . . When Ann came back and told me what you’d found at that horrible cottage — Laura and the other three sitting round that table, and all dead — I could scarcely believe it possible, and yet the strangest things do happen, my dear, don’t they? Now sit down there, on the side of the bed, and tell me all about it, but don’t come too near in case you catch my cold . . .’

  Peter complied, to the accompaniment of a running commentary of exclamations and clucking of teeth from Miss Wymondham.

  ‘Well, really, my dear,’ said the old lady, when he had finished, ‘it sounds incredible. What could those unfortunate people have wanted to go to a place like that for? And to eat a meal, too. It seems to me a crazy thing to do, but people really do the maddest things these days, and there seems to be no accounting at all for some of them . . . Why do you think they went there, Peter? I can’t imagine any sensible reason at all . . . Oh, dear, where has my handkerchief got to? I had it here only a moment ago . . .’

  Peter found the handkerchief and Aunt Helen blew her nose.

  ‘The people in the village seem to believe that it’s all the result of witchcraft,’ he said.

  ‘Of course they would, my dear,’ said Miss Wymondham. ‘The whole district is absolutely reeking with superstition — always has been and always will be. The mentality of the people hasn’t advanced very much since the dark ages . . . they still believe in spells, and about two years ago Mrs. Wigtree — such a queer name, don’t you think? — was found sticking pins into a wax image of Miss Overy, who keeps the dairy, because she thought she had given her short measure of something or other . . .’

  ‘And what happened to Miss Overy?’

  ‘Well, now, that was a very funny thing,’ said Miss Wymondham. ‘Of course it was nothing more than a coincidence, but she was taken ill with a very bad bilious attack. Everybody swore it was due to Mrs. Wigtree and her wax image but, of course, it was nothing of the kind. However, it just shows you what these people round here are like . . .’

  ‘Well, they seem to have some excuse for their beliefs,’ said Peter, thinking of what Sherwood had said. ‘After all, if you have been brought up to believe in a certain thing it takes a lot to eradicate it from the system. And they may be right. Perhaps there is something in it . . .’

  ‘Rubbish!’ declared Miss Wymondham. ‘I’m surprised that you of all people should suggest such a thing. You were always brought up a good Christian . . .’

  ‘There you are, you see,’ said Peter, laughing. ‘I was brought up to believe in the Christian faith and therefore I do. But I’ve no proof in the existence of God any more than these people have in the existence of witchcraft. It all boils down to a question of faith — something that you were taught by somebody else to believe.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Miss Wymondham. ‘Everybody has a mind of their own, I should hope. What they like to believe depends on themselves entirely . . .’

  ‘There are very few people,’ said Peter, ‘who take the trouble to think for themselves. They accept what they read, or are told, as a fundamental truth. For example, everyone has been told the principles of the solar system, but how many, do you suppose, have tried to prove the truth of it for themselves? Not one in a million, I should think. They just accept it as a truth . . .’

  ‘Have you, my dear?’ demanded Miss Wymondham.

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ retorted Peter, ‘but if it ever became important to me I should want to test the truth of it.’

  The argument might have developed, there was a glint of battle in Miss Wymondham’s blue eyes that suggested she was preparing to launch an attack, but at that moment Roberts appeared with a laden tray and informed Peter that luncheon was waiting. He retreated, therefore, in good order and undefeated, a result that he was not at all sure would have been achieved if the interruption had not taken place.

  *

  It was five minutes to four when he arrived at the police station in Hinton and was shown into the superintendent’s office. Colonel Shoredust sat behind the desk, and grouped about him, so that the none too spacious room seemed uncomfortably crowded, were Superintendent Odds, Sergeant Quilt, Doctor Culpepper, and three other men who were strangers to Peter. The Chief Constable introduced them respectively as Doctor Mipplin, the police surgeon, Detective-Inspector Donaldson, from Scotland Yard, and Detective-Sergeant Porter, also from Scotland Yard. Doctor Mipplin was a large, bony man with a high forehead and very little hair; the detective-inspector dark, quiet, rather thick-set, and possessed of a pair of shrewd grey eyes; Detective-Sergeant Porter thin, mouse-coloured, and almost nondescript. Peter took stock of them as he sat down in the chair which Superintendent Odds indicated. Colonel Shoredust cleared his throat, looked round the gathering, cleared it again, and opened the proceedings.

  ‘We are here, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘to investigate not only the deaths of four people which took place under very extraordinary circumstances on the night of October the thirty-first, or in the very early hours of November the first, but also a series of brutal murders which have been spread over a period of eighteen months. It may be that there is a connection between these happenings. It may be not. That has got to be decided. I have asked Mr. Chard to attend this conference because he found the bodies of the four people I have already mentioned, and will be able to give you a firsthand account of the circumstances. Except for the barest outline, you two fellers know damn-all, so I think we’d better start by Superintendent Odds giving you a summary of all the details in his possession.’

  Detective-Inspector Donaldson nodded.

  ‘I think that would be best, sir,’ he said in a quiet, unassuming way. ‘Beginning with the series of murders that started eighteen months ago.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Colonel Shoredust looked at Odds. ‘Ready?’ he demanded.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ answered the superintendent. He glanced down at a note-book balanced on his knee, and began. Peter had not heard a complete and detailed account of the affair before, and he listened with interest and growing disgust and indignation. Each case was practically identical, and differed very little from that of Joan Coxen. He saw Inspector Donaldson’s jaw tighten as Odds proceeded, and his face grow set.

  ‘A very nasty a
nd unpleasant business, sir,’ he remarked to the Chief Constable, when the superintendent had completed his recital. ‘You’ve discovered nothing likely to lead to the person concerned?’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ said Colonel Shoredust. ‘We’ve done our best, but we haven’t been able to find a blasted thing.’

  ‘There doesn’t seem much doubt it’s a homicidal maniac we’ve got to look for,’ murmured Donaldson, pinching the tip of his nose. ‘There can’t be any other reason for killing these poor children that I can see. That makes it a very difficult job, sir. There’s none of the usual things to help — motive and such-like.’

  ‘That’s what we found,’ grunted the Colonel. ‘We’ve done everything blasted-well possible . . .’

  ‘Did you ever set a trap for the murderer?’ inquired the inspector.

  ‘Trap? What d’you mean?’ asked Colonel Shoredust.

  ‘Leave some child in a place, alone, where it would have been easy to get at it,’ explained Donaldson, ‘and keep a vigilant watch. I think I should have been inclined to try that, sir. It might not have come off the first time, or even the second and third, but there’s a good chance of it being successful in the long run.’

  ‘That’s a blasted good idea,’ exclaimed Colonel Shoredust. ‘Wonder I never thought of that. Like the old hunter’s trick, eh? Tethered kid to attract the lion . . .’

  Peter saw the inspector look sharply at the Chief Constable and guessed that, like himself, he had been momentarily under the impression that Colonel Shoredust had made an intentional pun. But a glance at the Colonel’s face showed that he was quite unconscious of anything of the sort.

  ‘I think it would be worth trying,’ said Donaldson. ‘Now I should like to hear about these other deaths, if you please.’

  ‘Your turn, Chard,’ said Colonel Shoredust, and Peter described in detail how he and Ann had made the discovery. The inspector listened with the closest attention and without interruption, while Detective-Sergeant Porter took the whole thing down, verbatim, in shorthand as he had with Odds’s narrative.

  ‘Well,’ commented Donaldson, when Peter came to the end of his story, ‘there doesn’t seem to be much room for doubt that it was murder. The locked door and the missing key prove that all right. The next thing is how were these people killed?’ He looked interrogatively at Colonel Shoredust, and Colonel Shoredust looked at Doctor Culpepper and Doctor Mipplin.

  ‘You tell him,’ he said, briefly.

  Doctor Mipplin acted as spokesman. He had, he stated, made a post-mortem examination of the bodies, in conjunction with Doctor Culpepper, and in all four cases death had been caused by the swallowing of a large quantity of potassium cyanide. It was a very quick-acting poison and, judging from the amount found in the stomachs of the deceased persons, death must have taken place almost instantly after the act of swallowing — certainly within two minutes. An analysis of the remains of the wine left in the glasses showed the presence of potassium cyanide in considerable quantities. It was also present in the dregs of one of the opened bottles of wine, but not in the other. There was no poison of any sort in the unopened bottles of wine. There was no poison of any sort in the food. The appearance of the bodies was compatible with cyanide poisoning. Death had taken place, in the opinion of himself and Doctor Culpepper, between midnight and one o’clock in the morning. Doctor Mipplin’s voice was dry, rasping, and utterly lacking in any sort of emotion. When he had finished what he had to say he stopped abruptly, like a clock that has suddenly run down. Doctor Culpepper very briefly confirmed everything his colleague had said, and for a moment there was a silence. Then Inspector Donaldson said:

  ‘Well, sir, I think I’ve got the hang of the case. Eighteen months ago a number of lambs were found at periodic intervals with their throats cut, and this was followed by the disappearance and subsequent murder, of five children, ending with the discovery of the murdered body of the child, Joan Coxen, in the early hours of this morning. They were all killed in the same manner — by having had their throats cut. The suggestion is that someone in the district is a homicidal maniac who kills for the sake of blood-lust, but there is no clue to the identity of this person. On the night of October the thirty-first a Miss Laura Courtland with Mr. Robin Mallory, Miss Fay Bennett, and a French gentleman, André Severac, went, for some reason at present unknown, to an empty cottage known locally as Witch’s House, where they ate a meal, transported there for the purpose. During this meal they all died from the effects of poison, namely, cyanide of potassium, which had been introduced into the wine which they drank. A fifth place was laid at the table, but the plate and glass at this place had not been used. The evidence of the locked door and the missing key suggests, however, that there was a fifth person present and that this fifth person, after the others were dead, locked the door, took away the key, and, in some extraordinary manner, succeeded in escaping from the cottage without leaving any tracks in the snow. It seems only reasonable to suppose that this fifth person was responsible for the introduction of the poison into the wine, but there is nothing to prove this. No fingerprints, other than those of the dead persons, were found on anything in the room. There is no evidence to suggest, either, who this person might be, or what motive prompted the killing of the other four, nor is there any evidence to connect the poisoning with the slaughter of the lambs and the murder of the children . . .’

  ‘No,’ grunted Colonel Shoredust.

  ‘Therefore,’ continued Donaldson, quietly, ‘until such evidence should come to hand, I think the two cases should be treated as separate and distinct.’

  ‘Quite agree,’ said the Chief Constable, nodding.

  ‘I shall have inquiries made into the past histories of the four dead people,’ said the inspector. ‘Something may be discovered there that will help us. I gather,’ he looked at Odds, ‘that you have arranged for the inquest, superintendent?’

  Odds nodded.

  ‘Tomorrow morning at ten o’clock,’ he answered, ‘in the village hall. I suggested to the Coroner that it should only consist of evidence of identification, and the medical evidence, and then be adjourned for a fortnight . . .’

  Donaldson remarked that he thought this was a good idea.

  ‘I shall have to see him again, now,’ went on Odds, with a sigh, ‘about Joan Coxen . . .’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said the inspector. ‘Well, sir, unless you have anything further to suggest, I think that’s all for the present. I should like to chew over what you’ve told me and . . .’

  ‘There is just one other thing,’ interrupted Peter. ‘Something I heard this morning which might be of importance . . .’ He told them about the adventure of Ted Belton. Colonel Shoredust was sceptical.

  ‘Boy imagined it,’ he declared. ‘They blasted-well imagine anything in this district . . .’

  ‘I don’t think he did,’ said Peter. ‘He struck me as being a particularly truthful lad. I’m not saying he actually saw a man ten feet high, but I’m sure he saw something . . .’

  ‘Well, it’s worth remembering,’ said Inspector Donaldson, who had listened with great interest. ‘I’m much obliged to you, Mr. Chard, for the information. I suppose there’s been the usual local gossip about all this? What’s the general opinion?’

  ‘The general opinion,’ said Doctor Culpepper, slowly, ‘is that Fendyke St. Mary is suffering from a revival of witchcraft . . .’

  ‘Blasted lot of nonsense,’ growled Colonel Shoredust, angrily.

  ‘Belton is convinced,’ said Peter, ‘that the thing he saw was the Devil . . .’

  ‘Is that so, sir?’ said Inspector Donaldson, and he did not smile as might have been expected. ‘Well, I’ve come up against a few minor devils in my time, but never the Old Gentleman himself. That’d be an entirely new experience . . .’

  ‘And, probably, rather dangerous,’ remarked Doctor Culpepper.

  PART THREE

  THE COVEN

  ‘We have made a covenant with death, and with hell
are we at agreement.’

  Isaiah xxviii. 15.

  Chapter One

  The inquest brought everybody in the district, who was able to get there, flocking to the village hall on the following morning. It brought, also, a sprinkling of people who were not of the district: several newspaper reporters and two elderly, grave-faced solicitors whose names the industrious Odds had discovered among the effects of the late Robin Mallory and Fay Bennett, respectively, and notified by telephone of the tragic deaths of their clients. He had been unable to do the same in the case of André Severac for the simple reason that he had either not employed a lawyer, or had kept no record of his name and address. Mrs. Sowerby was there looking very important in her Sunday best, tightly clutching her subpœna and whispering volubly to Mrs. Bossom and Rose Higgs. Felix Courtland, in a heavy fur-lined overcoat, and muffled up to the eyes, was there, looking as though he would rather be anywhere else, and the Reverend Gilbert Ray was there. Inspector Donaldson was there with Superintendent Odds, but there was no sign of the nondescript Sergeant Porter, or Sergeant Quilt. Peter, who had got there early with Ann so that he could watch the inhabitants arrive, saw Mr. and Miss Tittleton come in and almost immediately after them a shambling figure with a head that appeared several sizes too big for it and wearing an overcoat that reached down to its heels. The vacant, foolish face turned towards him, and he nudged Ann.

  ‘Look,’ he whispered, ‘that’s the chap who nearly walked under the wheels of my car. It must be Twist . . .’

  ‘That was Colonel Shoredust’s chief suspect, wasn’t it?’ she murmured, and he nodded.

  ‘Yes. What do you think of him?’

  ‘I feel rather sorry for him,’ she answered, watching the ungainly figure. ‘I always feel sorry for people like that. There’s no reason to, I believe. They are usually quite happy — far happier than anyone with a normal intellect. But it seems rather sad, I think — a grown man, or woman, with the mind of a child. I wouldn’t say he was the person you’re looking for, Peter. It’s not that type of lunacy that murders children . . .’