The Case of the Innocent Victims

by John Creasey

  A Surrey superintendent, who looked rather like a retired general, tall, grey-haired, military-looking, greeted Roger briskly.

  “Glad to see you again, Superintendent. We haven’t met since your promotion. Congratulations.”

  “Thanks,” Roger said. “Any sign of movement at the bungalow?”

  “From information received, I understand that a man spends considerable time there on his own, and occasionally a woman goes there with him,” said the Surrey superintendent. “I have not been able to ascertain whether he is there tonight or not. At your request, I made sure that no one was given any reason to suspect our interest in the vicinity.”

  “Thanks,” Roger said. “Mind if I go and find out on my own?”

  “Glad to co-operate in every way we can,” said the Surrey man. “Have you any reason to believe that this man might be armed?”

  “I haven’t even reason to believe that he’ll fight,” Roger answered, “but if you and your chaps could get as near as possible without being seen, I’d feel more secure.”

  “Naturally. And Mr Evans?”

  “He’ll come with me.”

  “Very well, Superintendent.”

  Evans glanced sideways at Roger, looked as if he were going to say ‘thanks’ and changed his mind. But there was more spring in his step when they got out of the car and walked towards the path which led to the tiny bungalow – little more than an elaborate boathouse. It was badly overgrown with weeds, and there were two patches of bramble where the unsuspecting would tear their clothes, and women would ruin nylons. The only sound came from the houseboat, very distant music, and the soft lapping of water not far away.

  They passed a patch of hawthorn, came to the river, broad and slow-moving here, and sparkling. There was a little new-looking bungalow but no sign of movement or of life. By now, the Surrey police were in position, and Roger said: “I’d like you to wait ten feet or so behind me. If he’s here, he might be violent.”

  “More likely he’ll cut and run for it,” Evans said. There was a narrow door, firmly closed, in the weather-boarding shed of the boathouse section on the river’s edge. The path leading to the door was of crazy-paving, and looked as if it had recently been cleared of weeds. Roger’s footsteps sounded. He turned the handle of the door and pushed, without expecting it to open. It did not. He put his shoulder to the wood and pressed his weight against it, but would have had to use considerable force to get the door down; and although he had a search warrant in his pocket, he did not want to do any damage if he could avoid it. He saw a small window on one side, went round to it, and peered in. By putting his right hand up against the glass, le could make out the little room inside, the divan bed, a couple of chairs, a small television set and a radio. Beyond his was a doorway, open, and he could see the end of a small boat and thought that there was a small landing stage.

  Then, vividly and almost viciously, he was reminded of the running down of the policeman at Waterloo, for he saw man’s foot. It was in shadow, and difficult to see, but once he caught sight of it there was no doubt what it was. A man was lying down behind the partition, and the foot lay in a peculiar position, heel against the ground and the toe pointing away from Roger. Only a man dead or unconscious was likely to be so limp as that. Roger swung round.

  “Let’s get that door down, Evans!” He ran towards the door from one direction and Evans came from the other. Evans reached it first, and charged against it as if his body were a battering ram. He broke the door down first time, and staggered inside. Roger paused to give him time to recover himself, started forward – and then saw Cartwright, who must have been standing behind the door.

  Chapter Twenty

  Denials

  Cartwright gave Evans a push and sent him staggering further into the little room, then sprang out and slammed the door. Roger was only two yards away from him. Cartwright didn’t speak. His lips were set tightly and his eyes were glittering. He stood with his back to the doorway which leaned to one side, half-crouching. “Don’t play the fool,” Roger said. “We want to talk to you.”

  “Get out of my way.”

  “You’re not helping yourself. Stop behaving like a lunatic.”

  Cartwright leapt at him from the crouching position. His fists were clenched, he meant to smash Roger down and run for it. Roger swayed to one side, and felt the jolt of a fist against his chin, but it was a glancing blow. He took the next blow on his forearm. There was a moment of furious grappling, and then he got a hold on the other’s wrist, twisted, and thrust him backwards. Cartwright gasped in pain. Roger let him go, and he almost fell. Before he could recover, Roger had him in a hammer-lock, facing the doorway as Evans came out. There was a streak of blood on Evans’ forehead, and a vicious look in his eyes. He slid his hand into his pocket, and took out handcuffs.

  “Let me fix him,” he growled, and snapped the handcuffs, fastening Cartwright’s right wrist to his own left. Cartwright stood without moving, or attempting to move, staring towards the river. Surrey men came running from the bushes and trees as Roger said: “Charge him with attempting to inflict grievous bodily harm on a police officer, and attempting to prevent a police officer from carrying out his duty.” Evans was just the man for that kind of formality. “Hold him.” Roger waved to the Surrey superintendent, who astonished him by whirling along on a bicycle, by far the best and quickest means of transport here.

  Then Roger went into the boathouse.

  The foot which he had believed to be Cartwright’s was still there. If a dead man were behind that door, then Cartwright would really be up against it. He stepped through and looked down at Spendlove of the Globe.

  The reporter was breathing, and showed no outward signs of injury. Roger moved his right eyelid and saw the pinpoint pupil. He had been drugged with one of the morphia drugs.

  There were signs of a struggle inside the little room where Cartwright and Anne Kindle had come from time to time. A chair was on its side, one leg splintered. A bookcase had been knocked to one side, and books had fallen out. Two tumblers were on the floor, one of them broken. Roger saw all this while Spendlove was being carried out of the house into the fresh air. A doctor was already on the way, but Spendlove needed only time to recover from the drug. Cartwright was still handcuffed to Evans, who was standing a few yards from the front door. Two Surrey uniformed men were close by. The ‘retired general’ was carrying out a more thorough search of the premises; Roger felt sure that he would leave no stone unturned and no avenue unexplored.

  “What’s Cartwright had to say?” Roger asked Evans.

  “Not a word.”

  Roger studied Cartwright’s face for what seemed a long time. Cartwright stared defiantly but without insolence. He was a good-looking man, with lean features and a long jaw. It was easy to believe that he was popular with women, as easy to believe that there was a lot of courage in him. The clear-cut, healthy look was more noticeable out here than ‘it had been at Anne Kindle’s flat.

  “I don’t know what this has been about,” Roger said, “but if you didn’t kill that baby, you’d better talk fast. The quicker we know your side of the story, the better it will be for you.”

  “I have nothing to say,” replied Cartwright.

  “Don’t be clever,” Roger advised. “It never works. You’ve been charged with two offences which can be proved, and you could go to prison for three years or more for them. That’s the least that will happen to you if you don’t cooperate.”

  “I have nothing to say,” repeated Cartwright.

  “He’ll talk when he’s cooled his heels a bit,” Evans said.

  Roger did not feel so sure.

  He arranged with the Surrey superintendent to have Evans and Cartwright driven to Scotland Yard, and then went through the boathouse, and checked everything that had been done. Nothing of importance was found. There were only two sets of fingerprints – Spendlove’s and Cartwright’s. Roger found himself trying to avoid thinking too much about Spendlove, b
ut it would not be long before he began to wonder whether he should take the man on trust. The doctor from Kingston had simply said that he would come round in a few hours. It would not harm him to be driven to London, and he was put into Roger’s car, at the back.

  “What do you think it amounts to, Superintendent?” inquired the Surrey man. “Do you consider that Cartwright is the baby murderer?”

  “It’s beginning to look like it,” Roger said non-committally.

  “Provided there are no other attacks on babies, you should be able to make a fair case,” the Surrey man said. “But if there should be another attempt—”

  “You couldn’t be more right,” Roger said.

  He knew that it would be in the small hours of the morning before Spendlove came round, and arranged for him to be taken to a small nursing home near the Yard, and for a detective officer to stay at his side. Cartwright was lodged at Cannon Row for the night and would come up on charge in the morning. Bert May would, too. Roger checked that all the precautions of the previous night were being taken again, and Maddison’s house was as closely watched as ever. So were the homes of the ex-Maddison staff who had infant children, although neither appeared to have known Maddison, except as the Boss.

  Driving away from the Yard, Roger found himself feeling jaded and depressed, in spite of the results. Gibson dead, Corrissey dead, Cartwright caught, only the Osborn girl missing – and they had no real certainty about the killer. He drove out to Esher and saw Maddison alone in the study. Maddison was less intense, and said simply that he had given Roy the keys of the riverside bungalow, which he himself no longer used. He seemed distressed about Corrissey, and seemed to assume that the hunchback had panicked when he had realised that Gibson was dead.

  ‘’Have you any reason to believe that Corrissey had any motive for killing these babies?” Roger demanded.

  “I simply cannot imagine anyone with a motive for such hideous crimes,” Maddison said.

  When Roger reached home, the boys were squatting in front of a family programme on the television, and although they jumped up the moment he came in, obviously they were interested mostly in the screen. Janet was sitting beneath a wall lamp, reading a newspaper, and she looked up brightly when he entered, scanning his face for an indication of how things had gone.

  She would know about Gibson, of course.

  “Come into the kitchen while I get supper,” she said, “I can’t get the boys away from the television tonight. Sometimes I could throw the thing out of the window.”

  Scoop heard that, and looked round.

  “Is there anything I can do, Mum?”

  “Just say if there is,” urged Richard, without looking round.

  “I’ll call you in a minute,” Janet said.

  The kitchen was bright, and spick and span. Roger sat in an old Windsor armchair, took out cigarettes, and watched Janet as she busied herself with steak and chips. The potatoes hissed and spat as they fell into the boiling fat, the steak sizzled and hissed under the grill, Janet laid a place at the corner of the small kitchen table, and waited for Roger to speak.

  “If we get through the night without an alarm, I’ll begin to believe that Cartwright’s really our man,” he said. “At least we’ve got him. If we do have another alarm—”

  “Think we shall?”

  “I haven’t made up my mind what to think,” Roger admitted. “I’m just not satisfied that we’ve got all the answers yet.”

  There was no alarm during the night.

  There was a message, at eight o’clock next morning, saying that Spendlove had recovered at about five o’clock, but insisted on making a statement to Roger only.

  Spendlove looked a little pale and his eyes were dull, as if he had a headache; but there was nothing the matter with his mood. He was fully dressed and sitting in an armchair. The detective who had been with him all night was now on his way back to the Yard with a report; and would then go home. Spendlove was smoking a cigarette, and smiling one-sidedly as Roger stood and studied him.

  “Not guilty,” he said.

  “I’d like to make sure,” retorted Roger. “How did you get into that bungalow?”

  “I’d done work on Maddison before, and had discovered that at one time he’d owned a little riverside love nest. It didn’t take too long to find where, and I went to see if Cartwright was there, by any chance, and whether Helen Osborn had an affaire with him, too.”

  “Any reason to think that she had?”

  “I’ve no reason to think anything, except that Cartwright, isn’t a man I’d like to meet on a dark night. He found me snooping round, and before I knew where I was he’d hauled me inside, and laid about me. I don’t know whether you’re disappointed, but I was never a physically courageous man,” Spendlove went on. “That’s another reason why I didn’t join the police force.”

  “What did Cartwright do?”

  “Floored me, and said that he would beat me to pulp if I didn’t tell him why I was there. So I told him everything – or nearly everything – that I’ve told you. I did it in such a way that I got him to tell me some of the answers I wanted. When the session was over and he thought he had everything he wanted, he gave me a glass of beer with a couple of morphine tablets in it. He actually told me what they were and said that if I didn’t take them he would ram them down my throat. I was sure he meant it.”

  “Did you try to stop him?”

  “Handsome, I made two attempts to get out, one by the front door and one by the river, and he stopped me each time.” Spendlove rubbed his chin gingerly. “I don’t mind admitting that I wasn’t sure whether I was with a killer or not, and I didn’t like to take a chance. I’ve never been so terrified as when I took those tablets, either; for all I knew, he was giving me a lethal dose. He said that he wanted to make sure that I couldn’t put you on to him until the morning, when he’d had a chance to finish what he was trying to do.”

  “Did he tell you what he was trying to do?”

  “Yes,” answered Spendlove. “It’s so corny that even you will find it hard to believe.”

  Roger said easily: “I can tell you, I think. He says he has been and is being framed for the murder of Anne Kindle’s baby. He believes this is all part of a plot to get him out of the family firm. His uncle and, possibly, his aunt by marriage, are setting out to ruin him. How am I doing?”

  Spendlove took out cigarettes, proffered them, flicked his lighter and, when they were both smoking, answered wryly: “You forget one thing.”

  “Wait a minute, and I’ll try to remember it,” Roger said. “I imagine that it has something to do with his uncle employing a scoundrel like Corrissey, who actually murdered the baby, timing it so that he, Cartwright, would look as guilty as hell.”

  “Right on the nose,” Spendlove agreed, admiringly. “All right, Handsome. That’s the explanation that I had to listen to. It’s a peculiar thing,” went on the newspaperman, after a pause, “but as you told it to me and as I would tell it to you, it sounds phoney. In fact it sounds quite unbelievable. It’s a pity you didn’t hear Cartwright telling the tale. I don’t know whether he would have convinced you, but he came very close to convincing me.”

  “What made him so persuasive?”

  “It’s hard to say,” Spendlove answered. “It was partly the way he told the story, I suppose. He knew that, if he were arrested, charges would be made; and he didn’t think he had a chance. He was sure that his uncle was behind the framing and he wanted to find the proof. The only way was to find Corrissey and force him to talk. As a matter of fact,” went on Spendlove, “I think that’s the real explanation of my being fooled into believing him. He didn’t know that Corrissey died yesterday.”

  “Did you tell him?”

  “Yes. It knocked him badly, too. He was going after Corrissey because he believed he could make him talk. Now he doesn’t think anyone can help him.”

  “Did he say anything about the Osborn girl?”

  “She was there
when he ran from the dispatch room.”

  “Did you ask if he knows where she went?”

  “Believe me, I did. He said he ran for the vans and hid in one which soon moved off, and didn’t see the blonde again.” Spendlove finished his cigarette and stubbed it out in a porcelain ash tray. “I don’t think you’ll get him to talk, now. I think he’ll believe that the dice are loaded against him, and he would only be wasting his time.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Roger said. “Is that the lot?”

  “Everything.”

  “You may have to say so in court.”

  “And it won’t be perjury.”

  “Right!” said Roger briskly. “Now I’ll be going. I’ll tell the chap outside that you can go when you want to. Only next time there’s trouble, don’t be in the middle of it, will you? First at Anne Kindle’s place. Then at the warehouse. Then at the river. Next at the station. And yesterday at the river bungalow. Once more would be just too much for coincidence.”

  “You were there, too,” Spendlove retorted, “and we’ve the same kind of job even if we do it in different ways.”

  “As you pointed out once before,” Roger said.

  “Handsome, if you think that I’m involved—” Spendlove began, but before he could finish, the door opened and Evans appeared. Roger had not seen him this morning, and had only once seen him with the flushed cheeks and the bright eyes that he had now.

  Spendlove shut his mouth like a trap.

  Evans said: “Hilda Maddison’s just had another threat against her baby’s life. That wasn’t made by Cartwright, Corrissey or Bert May, was it?”

  At the Esher house, Hilda was beside herself, and no one could pacify her. She would not let the child out of her sight.

  Chapter Twenty-One