The Drill Is Death

by FRANCES

“The longer we wait—” the square man began, and was cut off—

  “The darker it will be,” the guvner said. “Ours are deeds of darkness, Hunter.”

  Oh, Reg thought, come off it. Do come off it.

  “Could make us up a fire, guvner,” Bennie said, and there was a kind of wistfulness in his voice. Make things cozy, a fire would—a cuppa in front of a fire. Nostalgia in Bennie’s mind; momentarily, Reg thought, in my mind. And if they decide on a fire, that’ll top it off. Because there’s no fire laid in the only fireplace I’ve seen and I’m sitting on the fireplace logs. He began to grope behind him for a log of suitable diameter and weight. Not much of a weapon—no weapon at all against gun or knife. Be a very bad show all around.

  “Why,” Hunter said, “hot shoot off skyrockets, Bennie? Somebody might miss the smoke signals.”

  The “guvner” laughed at that, briefly. He said, “I’m afraid he’s right, Bennie. Not a time when it pays to advertize. A spot of tea, yes. I’m afraid no fire.”

  Reg released his tentative hold on his stick of firewood.

  “I still think—” That was Hunter again; beginning again, being stopped again.

  “Don’t bother,” the guvner said. “There’s no special hurry, Hunter.”

  “Suppose they catch him?” Hunter said. “And he’s all locked up nice and tight at the time we take care of her?”

  “They can’t fix it that close,” the guvner said. “An hour or so one way or the other—more leeway than that, by the time we—make a suitable suggestion. Quit worrying, Hunter. Let me worry, what?”

  If Hunter answered that, the answer was physical. Bennie said, “Come along, then,” and from the sound they came along. Again legs passed the crack between door and jamb, and Reg, more or less holding his breath, counted. Eight legs—Bennie and the guvner and—who? If somebody had come with the “guvner,” then two legs missing. Somebody left on guard. Conceivably, somebody who didn’t care for tea.

  Reg cautiously widened the crack and leaned toward it. Not enough. Chance it?

  He chanced it, opened the door quickly, and stuck his head out. He withdrew his head instantly.

  The man who didn’t like tea was Hunter. Hunter was standing at the door, looking out through the glass. Hunter wouldn’t be surprised, this time; Hunter, this time, would know what to expect. And, if on guard, Hunter would have a gun.

  Chance it for himself—perhaps, although the prospect didn’t invite. But he wasn’t alone, now. There was a girl upstairs—

  “Take care of her—” No blinking what that meant. “Can’t fix it that close—” Fix the time of death—of her death. “Locked up nice and tight—”

  It was hard to take in, hard to believe. But—if I were locked up nice and tight I’d have an alibi, Reg thought. An alibi for a murder perpetrated while I was so locked up. If the time of murder can be pinned down and—

  The guvner, the man from home, sounded as if he knew what he was talking about.

  Kill a girl—kill my red-haired filly—only—only—to get at me; to get me hanged. To make it—to make it two murders, the second to cover the first.

  My God, Reg thought, the human mind doesn’t work that way, can’t work that way.

  But then he thought, mine can work that way—just has worked that way. Evil the human mind can imagine can exist.

  There was a kind of bitter coldness in his mind.

  It was the better part of an hour before the men came back. It was a bad time. Cramped in the little place it was a bad time for muscles, for knee joints. But the worst of the time was for the mind.

  They were going to kill her—take her somewhere and kill her. And between her and death there was only a man with no skill at things like this—a man who, instead of getting help, had embarked, knowingly, with almost pleasurable excitement, on “adventure.” Dear God—adventure. If we live through this, Reg Grant thought, with bitterness he had never known before, I’d better shoot myself.

  “No slip-up, this time,” the “guvner” said, as they went past Reg Gram’s small cave. “Larsen and I’ll go ahead. Make sure they’re not watching the place.”

  Larsen? The all-American boy? Or, the man who had come with the “guvner”; the man who had not been greeted? The “guvner’s” driver? Reg felt a kind of querulous resentment. How many more of “them” would turn up; how much longer would the odds get?

  “Hunter, you and Gilky bring the girl along. We’ll give the all clear, if it is all clear. Understood?”

  Hunter answered. Hunter said, “Yep.”

  “You’ve got the key?”

  “Yep.”

  “How about me?”

  That was Bennie, the cockney.

  “You stay and keep an eye on things, Wells. Wait for Peeks.”

  Peeks? Must be the Slasher. They might have quite a wait for the little pro, if they didn’t start looking for him.

  “O.K., guvner. And?”

  “Wait. Stay sober. Keep the wireless turned on for news. If the telephone rings, answer it. If you’re wanted, somebody’ll call. You know where to ring if there’s need. There won’t be.”

  Bennie Wells said, “Right.” He did not, Reg thought, seem too happy about it.

  They had moved into the entrance hall, clustered there.

  “All understood, then?” the “guvner” said. Apparently heads were nodded. “All right, Larsen. Come along.”

  The door opened and closed again. Reg heard a starter grind and, at the same time, two men treading up the stairs. One to go. Two legs passed his vantage slit. Bennie Wells, going to the kitchen to keep an eye on things.

  Jump them when they came down with the girl. That was the drill. Get out of this little coop, get into the shadows of the living room, jump from there.

  He got out; got into the shadows.

  They came down almost at once. A tall young man, a quite good-looking young man, came first. The girl came after him and then Hunter, the square man.

  Hunter had a revolver against the girl’s back. She had her head up, chin high. The light from above fell on her raised head, glinted on the deep redness of her hair.

  If I jump them, he’ll kill her, Reg thought. I can’t be fast enough. If I jump them, I kill her.

  He watched them go through the door. There wouldn’t be another car there—they’d have to get a car.

  He went out the door after them, and sought shadow. It was fully dark now and raining steadily, and there was fog again. Shadow was not hard to find—all the world was dripping shadow.

  He heard them walking away, wrenched at his mind and remembered.

  The building at the side of the house—the building which had once, he had thought, been a stable; was now a garage.

  There was a path, but he stayed off the path—walked in the silence of wet grass.

  A door grated up—a heavy door. He moved fast, his sound covered by the sound of the door. He got parallel with the door—garage door; one that slid up into the ceiling. A light went on in the garage. He heard a car door open and clunk closed again. Then the ceiling light went off and the car’s headlights came on.

  A big car—probably the gray saloon. And, beside it, ignored, a small black car.

  The big car backed out and, seeing that as it turned the lights would sweep the place he stood in, Reg dropped to the ground. The lights still flicked over him, but the car did not stop. It rolled on down a driveway toward the street.

  Reg ran then—ran into the garage, yanked at the door of the little black car. Little sports car—a Porsche. If they had left the key in the ignition—a good many people didn’t lock garaged cars.

  By God, a break. Time for a break. A symbol—luck rides with me now. Come on, luck. He started the motor; hoped Bennie wasn’t keeping an ear on them. Some distance from the house.

  A sweet car, the little Porsche. He had raced in Porsches. Sweet cars. Cornered like nobody’s—

  All the same, the sedan was not in sight as he turned from the street whic
h bordered the river. Little chance on trailing it, anyway, on a night like this.

  “His” place means my place. It’s got to mean my place. It’s got to. Come on, luck. Come on, sweet little car. Come on!

  XIII

  The cable from England was long; it was “re” a number of enquiries submitted as of even date. Lieutenant Stein watched and smoked as Detective (1st Grade) Nathan Shapiro read. What he read seemed to make Nate sad. But then, almost everything made Nate sad. Except plump, gay Rose in Brooklyn; except a little pooch, plump too and not, so far as John Stein had noticed, especially gay.

  Shapiro lighted a cigarette after the first paragraph of the cable. He put it down in an ash tray and it smouldered for a time and then went out. He was almost through reading the cable when he lighted another and, as he did so, looked across the desk at Stein and raised his eyebrows. Stein could guess what he had come to. He had come to coincidence of the sort Shapiro, along with most good detectives, was inclined to resent. But, like all good detectives, he profited by them when he could.

  The cable started with amplification, and some repetition. There was, for example, a statistical summary of Reginald Grant, poet—six feet three, weight eleven stone, etc. Shapiro, having seen the man, could have written it himself. It did confirm the obvious—that Grant was Grant. It had been some time since Shapiro had abandoned an always wistful hope. Grant was the only son of Canon and Mrs. Arthur Grant, both deceased. His only known relative was Dr. Benjamin Cutler. (See below.) This was pertinent, conceivably, because Grant had inherited an estimated half million pounds on his father’s death. His father had not earned it either; his father was a man of the church. Money ran in the Grant family because, for some hundreds of years, land had run in the Grant family. Suffolk land.

  Grant had been graduated from Cambridge. He had rowed in the Cambridge crew against Oxford. (Outcome not reported.) He had also been a good amateur boxer, light-heavy. After graduation he had, for several years, seemed to devote most of his energy to sports-car racing, again as an amateur. Not all of his energy, apparently—five years after leaving the university he had begun to have poetry printed in various magazines; seven years after, his first volume of poetry had been issued. Critical reception excellent. (Sales not reported.) After that, it appeared that he had given up racing and settled down to writing.

  No record of any political activity. Brief army duty, 1944. Demobbed 1945. No combat. Circle of friends reasonably wide, mostly literary. Unmarried; at one time engaged to Lady Daphne Powers. Reason for termination of engagement unknown. No evidence of sex deviation. In recent years had lectured extensively on poetry. Had written one play, in verse. Unproduced. Some friends in theatrical circles. One fine for driving to the public danger (110 mph in restricted area). No other police record. Flat in Chelsea. Small country place in Suffolk.

  (More money than Shapiro would have supposed. The Burberry had seen wear. Interesting that he had been a boxer. Must have quite a reach. No very evident pertinency; the girl had been knifed, not beaten with fists. Odd that London had thought his presumptive heterosexuality worth noting. Suspicious of bachelors, apparently. So—nothing that really added much.)

  It had been at that point that Shapiro had lighted a cigarette, dragged on it, and propped it in a tray.

  Re: Herbert Pepperill, Ph.D.

  (“Why?” Stein had asked, when Shapiro suggested that “Info re Herbert Pepperill” be included among the requests.

  “I don’t really know, John,” Nathan Shapiro said. “No reason, actually. Oh—he and Grant are the same breed of cats, in a way. Both British, anyway.”

  “You said he denied knowing Grant, except by reputation. Been out of the country since Grant’s been—”

  “I don’t know, John. No harm in asking, is there?”)

  Dr. Herbert Pepperill was widely known—in narrow circles—as an authority on Slavonic languages. Lecturer at Cambridge. Author of several books in his field. No exact physical description available; said to be thick-set and of ruddy complexion. Age, early sixties. No known political activities. Reported to be extremely crochety person. Recluse. Owned small house in remote area of Suffolk; no association with neighbors. Minimum association, apparently, with colleagues. Widower, father of one son who had been killed in Egypt during the war. Invited to lecture at Dyckman University three years ago. His small house near the east coast had been put up for sale and had not yet been sold, which might indicate that he did not expect to return to England.

  Pepperill’s house was some thirty miles from that owned by Reginald Grant. No evidence of any contact between the two. Further enquiries would be made if desired.

  (Shapiro had expected nothing in particular. He was, as he read the terse, often abbreviated, précis on Dr. Pepperill, wondering more than ever why he had asked that the Police Department of the City of New York waste money on four additional words in a cable to London. He had expected nothing in particular and got rather less—except, to be sure, that Pepperill had been a “curmudgeon” on his native heath as on this alien one.)

  Re: Benjamin Cutler, PhD.

  Cutler, first cousin of Reginald Grant—but much older—was also an authority on Slavonic languages and cultures. With that, his resemblance to Dr. Herbert Pepperill appeared to end.

  Cutter had been extremely active in left-wing causes—speaker at mass meetings, signer of many petitions; organizer (with others) of groups which sought rapprochement with Russia and her satellites; in the forefront of all movements for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Nobody had ever asked him whether he was a Communist and he had, apparently, never announced himself as one. And—Shapiro read this between the lines, with no surprise—nobody had questioned Cutler’s right to think as he pleased or to advocate what he liked. Nobody, at any rate, until, three years before, he had suddenly disappeared.

  There was interest then, and some of it official. During the Hitler war, Cutler had been a government consultant on matters in his field. His connection with officialdom had long since ended but—

  Shapiro, reading on, gathered that the British police were now growing a little cagey. There was no suggestion that, in defecting, Cutler had taken anything of value with him. There was no suggestion that he had anything of value to take.

  Nevertheless, Nathan Shapiro somehow gathered, there had been quite a little fuss made about the abrupt departure from England of a college professor who was an authority on how Slavic people spoke and behaved. The fuss, he also gathered, had been a rather quiet fuss. Shapiro looked briefly at the ceiling. A Slavonic expert might, he supposed, be useful in the instruction of persons assigned, for whatever reason, to associate with—well, say with Russians. Or, as of now—and quite probably during the war, also—blend into a Slavic background and not betray themselves. Cutler might have got to know a good many such persons; might now—or three years before now—have been able to name and describe some of those still around. H-mmm.

  Shapiro returned to his reading.

  No trace of Benjamin Cutler had been found three years ago, for all the fuss—the quiet, patient fuss—which had been made about it. Reginald Grant had, of course, been one of those interviewed. He had not been suspected of any involvement; it was merely that he was Cutler’s only known living relative. He had been able to contribute nothing of importance. The enquiry had ended flatly—ended with a supposition, unproved, that Cutler had defected. Enquiry—which Shapiro supposed had been even more quiet—had failed to turn up anything anywhere behind the Iron Curtain. Briefly, Shapiro envisioned a file of documents, probably stamped “Secret.” Perhaps even “Top Secret.” Documents with nothing much in them.

  “Now thought probable C. murdered,” the cable read next. “Body thought—”

  It was then that Nathan Shapiro lighted his third cigarette and looked across the desk at John Stein and that Stein guessed what Nate had stubbed his toe on. He’d stubbed his own somewhat earlier. He could feel sympathy.

  In mid-October, all Eng
land, and most particularly the east coast, had been battered by a storm of rather drastic proportions. The winds had raged and tides had raced in and rain had fallen heavily, and as a result of this onslaught a good many things had been washed out of loosened sand and earth.

  One of the things had been the bones of a right hand, sticking up out of sandy soil on a slope which led down to the ocean. Children playing in the sun, after the storm had passed, had come on the fleshless hand, which had seemed to beckon. It must, Shapiro thought unhappily, have been a most unpleasant thing for children to come on while playing in a welcome, drying sun.

  The police dug. They did not need to dig deep. The body, or what remained of it, was that of a man who had been dead for several years—three or four years, at a guess. He had been, from the bones, somewhere around sixty years old; he had been a heavily built man. He had been about five feet nine inches tall. And he had been murdered. When the body was moved, something rattled in the empty skull and, when the body was moved further, fell out through a hole in the back of the skull. What fell out was a bullet—a battered bullet; probably of .38 calibre; certainly, because of what had happened to it when it broke through skull bone, of no use to anyone’s ballistic experts.

  On one of the fleshless hands there was a signet ring. Identified as that of Benjamin Cutler. In the grave, which had never been deep enough (but murderers are people in a hurry), there was a watch. Identified as that of Benjamin Cutler. The body was a couple of hundred yards from a weekend and summer cottage-rented for several years, and frequently occupied, by Benjamin Cutler.

  It appeared that Dr. Cutler had gone behind a curtain more opaque, more final, than any men make to divide ideologies.

  In life, Cutler had been a heavy man for his height—13 st. 5. He had been five feet nine and a half inches tall. Which was close enough. He had had 20/20 vision. (The British police were very thorough.) He had worn a short beard. He had had, so far as his medical record showed, no skeletal fractures. Neither had the man buried by the sea in Suffolk, after having been shot in (not through) the head. This was negative; a recorded fracture of arm or leg is often a help to identification of bodies otherwise beyond recognition.