The Hunter and the Trapped

by Josephine Bell

  “Not that way,” his returning mind told him, with terror, with sorrow, “Never that way.”

  He twisted his hands together once more in an agony of doubt. Then went to the mirror to gaze at a haggard, distraught image he scarcely recognised as his.

  “We are as we are made,” he groaned, gripping the mantelpiece and leaning forward. As he stared and stared the harsh lines before him gradually softened, the yellow pallor gave place to a bronzed look of health. The dark eyes lost their hard glitter, softened, took on a doting tenderness. The mirrored lips parted in a gentle smile.

  “We are as we are made,” Simon murmured, lifting a hand to stroke the cheek in the glass.

  PART TWO

  The Trap is Sprung

  Chapter One

  Mrs. Morris’s dead body was found ten days later, lying behind the dust-bins at the rear of the Kilburn flats.

  The dustmen, on Monday morning, made this discovery. The dust-bins, one for each floor of the block of flats, stood in a row under a lean-to shelter at the far side of a small yard behind the building. A narrow passage from the road led into the yard, through a heavy door with barbed wire along the top to discourage inquisitive children and others. Another door from the yard led into the caretaker’s ground-floor premises, which were more roomy and better maintained than those of the tenants. This was not surprising, because the caretaker was also employed as handyman about the place, with instructions to touch up and even re-decorate the various flats as required. The surplus paint and distemper which he ordered in lavish quantities for these projects, came in very handy for his own rooms.

  Mrs. Morris was not visible from the yard door as the dustmen entered, whistling drearily to allay the tedium of a fresh week’s work. There were two of them, an elderly stocky man, whose movements were purely mechanical and who wore a yellow cigarette end fastened to his lip, and a thin lad, with long matted hair and very tight jeans, whose restless eyes darted about the yard in a sort of aimless desperation.

  It was he who found Mrs. Morris. He was heaving the last dustbin out of the corner, to sling it up on his back, when he stopped suddenly, his slack mouth falling a little further open. He stared round at the older man, who had come back as far as the yard door to see why the young fellow had not followed him out.

  “There’s a woman in be’ind,” the youth said.

  “Wod’yer mean – a woman?”

  “Looks dead to me.”

  “Yer kidding.”

  The older man approached reluctantly. It was not the sort of joke he appreciated and the boy’s face had a greenish look that suggested it might not be a joke at all. When he had satisfied himself that this was the case, he told the young man to go out and fetch in the driver of the municipal refuse lorry while he himself stumped over to the caretaker’s back door.

  Mr. Wilson opened the door immediately. He had, in fact, been observing the unusual behaviour of the dustmen from his kitchen window. His wife went out early every day on a cleaning job at the local cinema, so he was used to tidying up his own kitchen before he attended to the staircase and small dark hall of the flats.

  “What’s up?” he asked, immediately. He hoped the dustmen had not found something valuable in the bins that he had overlooked when he emptied the tenants’ various receptacles into them.

  The dustman explained. Mr. Wilson gulped, but did his duty by going to look at the find. Then he both gulped and retched, but was able to mutter, “Morris. Mrs. Morris. Worked here.”

  “You know ’er then?” The older dustman spoke severely. The youth, too, who had returned, was eyeing Mr. Wilson with some interest. He’d never come across a murderer. Not unless you counted that Cyril – but it had come in manslaughter for him in the end, on account of the knife had slipped unintentional.

  “I’ll have to call the police,” Mr. Wilson stammered, looking round at three accusing faces, for the driver had now joined the group at the dust-bin shelter and after peering at Mrs. Morris in her dark corner, had turned his back on her to stare in a hostile manner at the caretaker.

  At the word ‘police’ the three men moved instinctively towards the door of the yard, but were checked by Mr. Wilson.

  “You’re material witnesses,” he said, enjoying his sudden power to keep them. “You’ll have to wait till they say you can go.”

  The dustmen exchanged glances, but saw the force of his words. While he was gone they lit cigarettes, even giving one to the boy, whose packet was empty and who had begun to shake all over, looking far from well.

  “Shock,” said the older man, pityingly. “Never seed a dead body afore, I suppose?”

  The youth shook his head, drawing heavily on the cigarette.

  “Better sit down,” said the driver, kindly. He found a wooden box in a corner of the yard and eased the boy on to it. Then he and the other man began to exchange their experiences of the Second World War, which related to a great many dead bodies and did nothing to revive their young colleague.

  They had not got very far with their anecdotes when Mr. Wilson came out of the house again. At the same moment the Law, in the shape of a young constable, walked into the yard.

  “What d’you think you chaps are doing?” he said. “You’ve got that lorry of yours in the middle of the road and you’re obstructing the traffic. I’ve got a jam a hundred yards long outside. What’s the big idea?”

  “It’s what they found,” said Mr. Wilson. “I’ve just rung your station. Perhaps you’d like to take a look yourself.”

  The constable did so and did not like what he saw at all. But he pulled himself together and took the initiative. In a very few minutes he had taken down the names and addresses of the three municipal employees and a brief account of the find. Then he let them go. He already had the number of the refuse lorry.

  He was in the road, still sorting out the traffic after the dustmen had gone when the police car arrived with a detective-inspector and a police doctor.

  The doctor made a brief examination of Mrs. Morris without altering her position.

  “Strangled,” he said. “Manually, it looks like. Been dead, I should think, for over twenty-four hours. Probably more.”

  The inspector nodded and going into Mr. Wilson’s flat held a brief conversation on the telephone with the divisional superintendent. He also ordered an ambulance and then went outside to speak to the young constable, who had disposed of the traffic jam by this time and was hovering nearby, hoping to justify his actions.

  He was relieved to find himself commended.

  “Did you tell those chaps to keep their mouths shut at present?”

  The constable was dashed.

  “No, sir. But they weren’t the sort to take suggestions,” he added.

  “O. K.” The inspector grinned. “Better stay around. The ambulance will fetch a crowd. With luck the Press won’t be among them.”

  This wish was fulfilled. The unsensational sordid death did not find its way into the papers until Tuesday morning and then only as a brief paragraph on a back page. But it was murder. The pathologist in the mortuary confirmed the police doctor’s speculative finding. The body was identified by relatives as well as by Mr. Wilson and the case, for a very good reason, was given to Chief-inspector Mont of Scotland Yard to untangle.

  An unsensational, sordid death and a very obscure one. It did not take Mont long to discover from Mr. Wilson that Mrs. Morris was a regular cleaner at the flats. He learned who she worked for, how long and on what days of the week. He discovered that she was tolerated, but not liked, by the Wilsons, who never invited her into their own premises.

  “Any particular reason for that?” asked Mont, eyeing Mr. Wilson severely. He knew several already, but was not prepared to disclose this.

  “Not to speak ill of the dead,” Mr. Wilson said, pompously, “we wanted to avoid any possible unpleasantness.”

  “Such as?”

  “I’m sure you take my meaning,” said Mr. Wilson.

  The Chief-i
nspector did. The Wilsons seemed to think Mrs. Morris was light-fingered. It was a point he would have to go into with the tenants. But there was no reason to suspect the Wilsons of murder, except for the curious circumstance of the body being found in their yard.

  “She was working here on Friday, was she?” he asked. “That was the last time you saw her?”

  “Correct. But she was working on Saturday, so I believe. She does for Mr. Nelson on Saturday.”

  “Then you did see her after Friday?”

  “No. Me and Mrs. Wilson was away all Saturday. At her mother’s place in Ealing.”

  “When did you leave?”

  “About nine. Mrs. Morris would be coming ten till twelve. To Mr. Nelson.”

  “I see. Then on Saturday there would be no one likely to notice anything that took place in the yard? I mean, your door is the only one to open into the yard, isn’t it? You have a front door into the hall and the door into the yard. None of the other flats has access to the yard?”

  “Only by the yard door off the road.”

  “Exactly.”

  Mr. Wilson received this conclusion with evident surprise. It had not occurred to him before. But he could not deny it.

  “There’s windows see out this side,” he said.

  “I know. But the yard’s small and there’s the roof of the shelter.”

  “Which would obscure a view of the inside?”

  “Exactly. The angle is steep, there are blank walls on two sides. The roof over the dust-bins would render them invisible from higher up than ground level.”

  Mr. Wilson said, hesitatingly, “Is it your opinion, sir, that the – er – murder took place under the shelter, like?”

  Chief-inspector Mont allowed himself a straight, keen look at the caretaker.

  “Unless she was carried out of your back door, or round the front of the flats, I imagine that is what happened. But my guess is as good as yours, so far,” he said. “Was the yard door locked on Saturday?”

  “Not in the morning,” said Mr. Wilson, regretfully. “On account of Miss Draper’s bicycle. Fourth floor. Teacher. Rides it to work. Goes off on it most weekends. I unlock the yard door at eight, mornings. And bolt it last thing at night. Every day, including Sundays. Miss Draper never brings her bike in late.”

  “Thank you,” said Mont and prepared to interview the tenants of the flats, particularly those who had employed Mrs. Morris regularly.

  But here he found himself frustrated. As Mr. Wilson explained, most of them were out working during the day. Some of them provided Mrs. Morris with keys of their rooms, one or two had asked him to let her in and see that she went on time, and not before.

  “How do they pay her, then?” asked Mont.

  “When she comes Saturday morning,” Mr. Wilson answered. “To Mr. Nelson. He likes to be there when she’s working for him. He’s a retired gentleman himself, but out a good deal. The others has her once each, weekdays, and Mr. Nelson on the Saturday. She calls at the others Saturday for her money before leaving. They stop home mostly, or if they’re off for the weekend they gives the money to Mr. Nelson to pay her.”

  “Complicated,” said Mont. “But they seem to be a trusting lot. Except you and your wife,” he added, as an afterthought.

  Mr. Wilson made no reply to this and after finding that only one of the tenants, an elderly woman, was at home, the Chief-inspector left, saying he would be back in the evening to interview all the tenants.

  He returned to the Yard where he expected to find more useful information than the people at the flats were likely to provide.

  For Mrs. Morris and her family were well-known there, which was the reason why Mont had been given his present assignment. She herself, though often suspected of collusion with the various delinquent members of her family, had never actually faced any charge. But Mr. Morris’s heavy features and thickset torso were represented in the records, together with his finger-prints and a considerable description of his persistent criminal activities. Mr. Morris had left the cooler only the Friday before and was known to have visited his home. The married daughter from Kentish Town, who had identified her mother’s body at the mortuary, had said so. He had been seen in the neighbourhood besides, though his younger sons and daughters denied his having spent Friday night at his home. They were almost certainly lying.

  The fact remained that on Saturday evening and Sunday Mr. Morris was known to have made contact with some former friends in Bermondsey. He had been seen in several of his old haunts. He was not, apparently, short of money. But that could mean nothing at all: His lot were never short of money. They were too valuable to the top crooks who employed them.

  On the other hand it could mean much. Mrs. Morris collected her wages on Saturday. She was always on bad terms with her husband. He knew where she worked. They could have quarrelled in the yard of the flats if she refused to hand over those wages. Morris’s temper had grown steadily worse over the years. He had let out at a prison officer during his last stretch, putting the poor screw in hospital for a week and himself in the punishment cells for a longer period. He had lost his remission for this episode. And he had now disappeared.

  Chief-inspector Mont, usually very careful not to draw conclusions from insufficient evidence, nevertheless felt it safe to do so now. Tentatively, of course. In the first place, the bulk of murders were domestic; men killed their wives or their wives’ lovers; wives occasionally killed their husbands; parents killed their children; children their parents. Mrs. Morris was not a type to occasion sexual enmity. But money was a recurring problem in her family. The Morrises were known to fluctuate for no apparent reason between affluence and near penury. Their various legitimate occupations did not carry anything like top wages. Several of them, besides the father, had had convictions.

  Secondly and significantly, no handbag had been found with Mrs. Morris, no purse of any description in the pockets of her clothing. The local inspector had noticed this fact in attempting to verify Mr. Wilson’s identification. He had very properly taken steps to search the yard and the single dust-bin that was left there. Without result. The refuse department of the local authority was asked to impound the lorry concerned and preserve its contents. Already these were being sorted and examined. Chief-inspector Mont was disappointed in the results so far. A scarf that the woman might have worn on her head was set aside for him to look at, but her daughter said her mother never wore scarves on her head and she did not recognise the article.

  So the Chief-inspector found himself baulked in his main line of inquiry. This did not disturb him. There were the tenants of the flats, after all. It was still less than twelve hours since the body was found. The story had not broken in the evening papers.

  Mont looked at his watch. Those tenants should be in by now, or at any rate those who had gone straight back to the flats from their work. Taking a sergeant with him he drove to Kilburn.

  Chapter Two

  The Chief-inspector did not announce his arrival to the caretaker. He simply walked up the dingy stairs to the first floor and after reading the names printed on small cards in slots, rang the bell on the right hand side of the landing. The card there was yellow and stained with age; Mrs. Hyde was evidently an old inhabitant.

  She opened the door after some delay occasioned, the Inspector decided, by her difficulty in walking rather than by a reluctance to answer the bell. When he explained who he was, she apologised immediately for keeping him waiting.

  “Arthritis,” she explained, limping across the room. “I don’t get out much these days.”

  Mont expressed sympathy and explained his errand.

  “Poor woman,” Mrs. Hyde said, but without any apparent sorrow. “I suppose it was that brute of a husband of hers.”

  “Did she tell you about him?”

  “Oh, constantly. I never knew quite what to believe, because she was not altogether reliable herself. I mean I think she exaggerated. Particularly when she wanted to get money out of me.”
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br />   “In excess of her wages, you mean?”

  “Yes.” Mrs. Hyde looked thoughtful. The Chief-inspector waited.

  “I never gave in to her,” Mrs. Hyde said, “not even when she tried to apply pressure.”

  Mont was interested. The mild old woman with the painful hip was looking at him with quite a new expression. The soft lines of her ageing face had hardened and two steely eyes showed the power that still lived behind them.

  “If you could give me some idea of what you mean by pressure,” he said, carefully, “it might help us. We have a certain amount of information that leads in what I presume to be the same direction.”

  “It did not concern me personally,” said Mrs. Hyde. “Only a member of my family. I told her if she ever made any such suggestion to me again I would go to the police. She never did – to me.”

  “I can well believe that,” said Mont, smiling.

  “But she may have approached – others,” Mrs. Hyde said, gently.

  Was this a hint? Did it relate to the other inmates of the flats or to the relative she had so firmly shielded? Was it an old woman’s imagining or deliberate malice? The Chief-inspector began to feel that he did not much like Mrs. Hyde.

  “In spite of this sort of thing you continued to employ her?” he asked.

  “Well, yes. She came to several of my neighbours. It was a convenience. We shared the insurance stamp and the travel. Not that she had to come from far away. She had another job quite close. I expect she collected double bus fares.”

  “Very possibly,” Mont murmured.

  “I had her for two hours on Tuesday mornings. These flats are very small. Just this living room, a small bedroom, kitchenette and bathroom. Originally built as offices, I believe, but turned into flats in the rush for accommodation after the war. I’ve been here ever since. I lost my own house and …”

  “Did you pay her every Tuesday?” Mont asked, breaking through the rising tide of reminiscence.