The Case of the Innocent Victims

by John Creasey

  Then, the front door opened. She screamed: “There he is!”

  She saw a man appear in the doorway. He wore a long coat and a cap pulled down over his face, and she could see only his shape and the glint of his eyes. She was only a few yards away from him, and she felt paralysed. The man on the other side of the road called again: “Anything the matter?”

  Alice flung herself at the man who was rushing from her house, but as she reached him he kicked out, and she felt the sharpness of his toecap on her knee. She cried out, staggered and fell. She saw the man dart to one side. She saw the policeman appear, without his helmet. She tried to get up, and so hampered the policeman, while the intruder was racing along the street, and the man in the road was shouting:

  “Stop thief! Police!”

  Alice said in a choking whisper: “Oh, God, not my baby,” as she struggled to her feet.

  Police Constable Stevens of the local Division, who had been patrolling the street when he had heard this woman screaming, now saw the man racing towards the end of the street, heard the man shouting, and heard this woman saying in a terrified voice: “Oh, God, not my baby.” All the horror one could imagine was in her voice and her expression as she fought to get to her feet. Then a car’s headlights swept the street, and Stevens knew that a Flying Squad car had arrived. Its occupants would almost certainly see the running man. He shouted across to the man on the other side of the road: “Tell them which way he went!”

  Then he turned to follow the woman into the house. She was limping, and put out a hand to support herself. He could tell the terror she felt, the dread she had of what she might find. She tried to hurry, but could not.

  Stevens said sharply: “Let me go first.”

  He took his torch from a hook inside his tunic, flashed it on, and shone it on the stairs. They were covered with a patterned carpet. He pushed past the woman, who was still limping, and found the light switch. As the light came on, he told himself that his first job was to find out what had happened. He started up the stairs, and thought he heard a whimper of sound, but he knew that there were three children in this household. He tried to tell himself that there was not the slightest reason to believe that this had been a visit from a baby-killer. He failed to convince himself. He reached the landing, and had to call: “Which room?”

  He heard the mother say: “Straight—straight ahead.” She was halfway up the stairs, and standing still for a moment; obviously her knee hurt badly. He went straight into the room in front of him. The door was wide open, and no light was on. He pressed the switch by the door, but nothing happened. He tried to keep the beam of his own torch steady as he flashed it. The beam fell on a cot; as he stepped further into the room he saw that it was against the wall on the right, safely out of the draught from door and window.

  He saw the child.

  Asleep? Or dead? He went closer, gritting his teeth, and the light fell on its eyes, and its eyes opened. He swung round.

  “She’s alive!” he cried. “It’s all right!” Then he went down on one knee, and picked the child up.

  Roger heard the telephone in the middle of a boxing programme. The boys were intent on the screen, and Janet was ironing on the other side of the living-room at the back of the house. He got up, and went into the hall, where there was an extension, of the telephone. He felt edgy; he had been all night, especially since he had been told about the telephone call to Maddison’s house. He sensed that Janet was looking at him but was forcing herself not to complain; he had seen how white she had been when she had read of the incident on the turntable. He winked at her, and lifted the telephone, leaving the door open. The boys turned down the volume of the television. “Roger West here.”

  “Sorry to worry you, Mr West.” So it was the Yard again. “But there has been another baby incident, at Acton. The child doesn’t seem to have been hurt, but the attacker got away. Mr. Hennessy asked you to go right away. The address is—”

  “I’m on my way,” Roger said, a moment later.

  It was almost a relief to go out on a job, not to have to ‘rest’ while wondering what was happening outside, wondering where Gibson was; wondering.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Hunt

  Roger saw the little woman in the front room of the narrow terraced house, and thought that she looked tired but radiant. She was so tiny that she hardly came up to the shoulders of massive Superintendent Hennessy of the BS Division, who was in the room with her. Roger stepped into an ordinary front room in an ordinary suburban three-bed-roomed house. The baby lay asleep in an armchair, with another chair pushed up close, to make sure that it could not wriggle out.

  “Everything all right, Mrs Graham?” Roger asked.

  “This is Superintendent West, of New Scotland Yard,” Hennessy introduced.

  “Yes, everything’s wonderful now, and my husband will soon be home,” answered Mrs Graham. “I don’t know what would have happened without that policeman, though.”

  “One of our chaps was in the street,” Hennessy explained.

  “He was wonderful!”

  Roger said dryly: “Aren’t all policemen supposed to be?”

  Mrs Graham laughed excitedly, then turned to look down at her child, and obviously forgot Roger. Hennessy went out with Roger, and they seemed to fill the little staircase.

  “Thank God it wasn’t worse,” Hennessy said. “No doubt the swine was going to kill the kid.”

  “Positive?”

  “Come and see for yourself.”

  In the tiny bedroom where the cot was, three policemen were working – one taking photographs, two searching the floor and the cot, which had already been tested for fingerprints; a black powder had been used on the pale-blue paint. On a double bed, spread out on a large sheet of brown paper, were several things from the cot, including the pillow.

  “Just the same as with the other baby jobs,” Hennessy said. “The pillow was on one side. Obviously it had been held over the baby’s mouth – there are slight sick marks dead centre of the pillow.”

  Roger nodded.

  “If the child had just dribbled, the marks would have been one side or the other,” Hennessy said, hammering his point home. “Anyhow, the baby was lying on the mattress and the pillow was at the side. The baby couldn’t have moved it.”

  “Speaks for itself,” Roger agreed. “We had any luck?”

  “Any luck, Smith?” Hennessy asked one of the men.

  “Could be a couple of footprints,” reported Smith. He was tall, dark and very thin, and his eyes had a baleful look. He indicated two circles chalked on the linoleum, and lying across the lines were two pieces of cardboard, to make sure that nothing could destroy marks beneath them. “No fingerprints, though. He wore gloves.”

  “Hm. How long will it be before we can see photographs of those footprints?”

  “First thing in the morning, sir.”

  “Can’t we get a better light?” Roger asked, and looked up at a low wattage bulb.

  “The intruder broke one, and this is the only one we could get. I’ve sent for more,” Hennessy said. “Use your torch, Smith.”

  Smith went down on one knee, and removed the cardboard as if it were both fragile and precious. Then he shone a torch on to the polished linoleum.

  Roger saw at once what had happened. When this floor had been polished, two small patches had been missed with the actual polishing, so that there had been a slight smear of wax polish. The intruder had stepped on these. The shiny floor had taken no impression of his feet, but the dull patches showed a heel, and one showed a heel and toe. Only a very quick and smart officer would have seen those; and the luck had been with them, for no one else had smeared the prints.

  “Damned smart,” Roger said, and Smith stopped looking baleful. “See I get plenty of prints, too, and telephone a description to the Yard. What size boots, would you think?”

  “Eight and a half or nine.”

  “Cartwright wears a nine,” declared Hennessy.
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br />   “Yes,” Roger said. “Thanks, Smith.” He led the way downstairs, and Hennessy was smiling as if at some secret joke. “Where’s this copper who came to the rescue?”

  “Out on the beat,” answered Hennessy. “I don’t believe in spoiling my chaps. He should be along in five minutes or so. I’ll have him brought in.” He led the way into a small kitchen. “The woman really did the job; she dialled 999 and then kicked up a hell of a row. Scared the swine off.”

  “She see him?”

  “Just the figure of a man, cap pulled over his face. She says medium size.”

  “Any other witness?”

  “Man across the road didn’t come near enough to see the attacker, but says he was wearing a dark coat, and then he dropped his cap at the end of the street, but that was too far away to get a clear sight of him. He’s not sure of the man’s size, says the coat seemed to billow out and make him look big.”

  “One of our chaps on the spot and a Squad car on the way – how did the chap get away?” Roger demanded.

  “Had a motor-cycle waiting,” Hennessy said. “I’ve a couple of chaps looking at the spot where it was parked; we might get something from the tyre marks. By the time the Squad car was on the spot, he’d got too far away. I put out a call for all motor-cycles to be stopped – don’t know whether there’s been any luck.”

  “We’d have heard if there had been,” Roger said. “Our best chance is that footprint.”

  “One thing’s certain: only a psycho would keep doing this,” Hennessy declared. “Whether it’s Cartwright or not I don’t know. Cartwright got any reason to hate babies?”

  “I’m trying to find out,” Roger said. “I’m going to have another word with Mrs Graham.” He went into the other room, where the young mother was still excited, and asked, as if casually: “Do you know Maddison, the carpet people, Mrs Graham?”

  “Oh yes,” said the woman promptly. “I worked there until I was married.

  So it was beginning to add up, Roger thought grimly, and stood studying the woman while other possibilities flashed through his mind. There were a dozen things he wanted to check urgently, among them whether Mrs Shaw as well as Mrs Kindle had worked at Maddisons. Mrs Graham was looking at him intently, as if puzzled by his manner, and he asked quickly: “How long were you with the firm?”

  “Just over ten years. I went there straight from school.”

  “Did you know Mr Cartwright?” Roger was ready for the slightest sign that the question worried the woman.

  “Well, not really,” she answered. “He was a schoolboy most of my time – he first came into the firm a few months before I left.” She could not have been more untroubled.

  “Did you know Mr Maddison?”

  “Of course – everyone did.”

  “Did you know Helen Osborn?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Mrs Graham. “I was in the general office and she was really Mr Maddison’s secretary, but Helen and I got along very well. I—”

  She stopped abruptly, and the change in her expression was startling; in a moment, she looked both horrified and alarmed.

  “What’s the matter?” demanded Roger. “You must be absolutely frank with me.”

  “Yes,” she promised huskily. “There’s no reason why I shouldn’t. I—I just realised that Anne Blythe, Anne Kindle as she is now, worked at Maddisons too, and her baby—” She broke off.

  Roger said quietly: “Do you know Mrs Shaw?”

  “Shaw?”

  “A Mrs Shaw lost her baby in the same way last week,” Roger reminded her.

  “Oh,” said Mrs Graham, heavily. “I—I don’t know her, I as far as I’m aware, but then, Shaw’s her married name, isn’t it? I thought she was rather like a girl in the salesrooms, Joyce Barber, but—”

  Mrs Shaw’s Christian name was Joyce, Roger knew.

  Here was a new angle that might lead to the answer: three young mothers, all employed at one time by Maddisons, all victims of the baby-killer, all acquainted with Edward Maddison and with others at the Maddison warehouse and offices; all in some way associated with Roy Cartwright, too.

  Now Mrs Graham had a scared look.

  Roger said. “Mrs Graham, I want you to think of anyone – any man – known to all three of you: Joyce Barber or Shaw, Anne Blythe or Kindle, and yourself – anyone who might have a reason to want to make all of you suffer. Anyone who—”

  “You mean, anyone who was in love with us, or thought he was,” said Mrs Graham quietly. “I wouldn’t know about the others, but there were only two men who ever took any notice of me. One’s married and went to Australia, and the other one—” She hesitated, and then went on very quietly: “I don’t know that I ought to name anyone, Mr West.”

  “Unless he’s mixed up in these crimes, he’ll never know,” Roger assured her. “Who was it, please?”

  “Mr Maddison,” answered Mrs Graham flatly. “He said he was in love with me, but I never took him seriously.”

  Perhaps that had been her great mistake.

  “Say nothing of these questions to anyone, please,” Roger warned. “And you won’t be involved unless it’s vital.” He wished her good-night, and went out, impressed by her intent and worried look, and positive about one thing: she had hated naming Maddison.

  It was a little after ten o’clock when Roger went outside and found a spit of rain in the air. A policeman was approaching smartly, and Hennessy came up and said: “Here’s the man who was on the spot, Superintendent.”

  Roger saw a surprisingly young face beneath a surprisingly large helmet. “Nice work,” he said, “keep it up.”

  “Thank you, sir!”

  “All right, Stevens,” Hennessy said, and Stevens went on less smartly, but obviously glowing, to pound his beat. Roger went to his car. “Some people are lucky,” Hennessy grumbled. “It will be hours before I can get to bed.”

  “If I’m wanted urgently,” Roger said, “try Edward Maddison’s house, 17 The Close, Esher.”

  Hennessy had the grace to grin.

  Roger drove to the corner, turned it, and then radioed the Yard. He had not wanted Hennessy to know of the latest development yet; the Divisional man might not be able to resist questioning Mrs Graham, and it would be wiser not to question her too deeply yet.

  “Is Mr Evans still on duty?” Roger asked the Yard.

  “Yes, sir, I’ll put you through,” and Roger waited only a moment before Evans came on.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Here’s a new line,” Roger said at once. “Check whether Mrs Shaw was a Joyce Barber before she was married, and also check if she worked at Maddisons. We know already that Mrs Kindle worked there.”

  “Gawd!” exclaimed Evans.

  “If they did work at Maddisons, find out if anyone there ever set their caps at them.”

  “Such as who?”

  “Anyone.”

  “Right!” Evans exclaimed.

  Roger drove on, heading for Brentford and Kew Bridge.

  He knew this side of London thoroughly, and knew every short cut to Kingston and then out to Esher. It would be more than half-past ten when he arrived, but he had no doubt at all that he should go and try to shake Maddison.

  Had Maddison or had Cartwright any cause for hating the babies of these three women? Had there been anything in their lives which might have turned their minds against them? Had Cartwright, for instance, received any recent shock which might affect him?

  It was twenty minutes to eleven when Roger stopped outside number 17, The Close. There was a street lamp outside, and a light at the front door of the house itself. He knew the district and the type of house well, and was quite sure that this came into the luxury class. He waited at the gate for a moment, and heard a rustle of movement, glanced round, and saw a man standing just inside the garden.

  “I’m Superintendent West,” Roger said.

  “That’s a relief,” the man said, as if he really meant it. “Good-evening, sir.”

  “Everything qui
et?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have we got a chap at the back?”

  “Two.”

  “Thanks. What can you tell me about Maddison?”

  “Not really a lot. This isn’t my usual district,” the man said. “There are the two living-in servants, ex-Constable Mayhew and wife, and there’s a nursemaid who’s still out. Maddison’s in, and so is his wife. I don’t know about baby-killing, but this was a case of baby-snatching all right!”

  “Like that, is it? I’m told she’s a beauty.”

  “But dumb,” the policeman said.

  Roger smiled as he walked up to the front porch. It was always a reassuring thing to find the police on top of their job, and obviously nothing would be allowed to slip up here. The telephone calls did their damage psychologically by striking fear. The baby might be in some kind of danger, and Cartwright might try to get in touch with his uncle, so there were the two reasons for keeping the house under close surveillance.

  As Roger reached the porch, the light went out. He could not find the bell push, and waited for a moment. He heard footsteps, and judged that two people were going upstairs. He waited until they were probably halfway up, and then rang the bell. He heard an exclamation, and stood back from the porch. After a moment, the light went on again, dazzling. The door opened, and Maddison appeared. Behind him, on a wide flight of stairs, was one of the most beautiful young women imaginable; beautiful enough to catch Roger’s eye, although his main interest was in Maddison.

  “Who—” Maddison began, and then obviously saw who it was; annoyance sharpened in his voice. “I really must protest at this intrusion, sir.”

  “I want to see you urgently,” Roger said. He stepped forward so that Maddison was forced to give way a little. He could see the man’s grey eyes, the way he frowned, the fact that he did not like this kind of treatment. The woman had a scared look. She was wearing a silken housecoat, high at the neck, shaped to her figure; the I-want-to-look-as-if-I’ve-been-poured-into-it kind. He judged that she was in the early twenties. “Good-evening, Mrs Maddison,” he said. “Have you seen Mr Cartwright this evening?”