Murder Somewhere in This City

by Maurice Procter

  “Something up,” said Martineau.

  Then they saw two chairs, one after the other, sail through a top floor window of Furnisher Steele’s and fall and break their limbs on the cobbles of the alley.

  Devery said “Silver!” and sprinted along the alley. The inspector did not immediately follow. He stood there, looking up. He heard a shot, then two more. A bronze statuette dropped to the ground. Then a bright golden head rocked for a moment in a frame of broken glass, and disappeared. He waited, and saw the face of Don Starling peering down. He smiled grimly, and waved. So they were to meet, after all! Starling seemed to say something, and his dark eyes suddenly glowed with devilish intent. His hand holding a pistol appeared, but Martineau had leaped toward Steele’s building, and he was running along close to the wall.

  When the inspector reached Little Sefton Street he met a hurrying sergeant. “Get your men around Steele’s place,” he said, pointing. “Somebody’s been shot. Starling’s in there, and he’s armed.”

  The sergeant said “Yessir,” and turned away. Martineau entered the furniture shop and ran up the stairs. He ascended the four flights without meeting anybody. But on the top floor he met Devery, carrying Silver’s limp body. By his side Furnisher Steele hovered anxiously. A uniformed constable was there also. He was staring up at an open skylight.

  Silver’s eyes were closed. Her face was pale and her head lolled. She had lost her dust cap and her lovely hair hung down.

  Martineau looked at Devery. “Sorry. Is it bad?”

  “In the back,” said Devery tightly. “It looks bad to me. I’ll put her in the ambulance and come back here. Starling’s on the roof.”

  They went down the stairs. Martineau turned to the P.C.

  “Did anybody see him?” he asked.

  “Me and the old man, sir,” the constable replied. “We arrived up here together. Starling’s legs were just disappearing through the skylight.”

  He pointed. Martineau had already noticed the light cane table which had been placed on a bigger table beneath the skylight.

  The constable held up a big service revolver which he had been holding at his side. “The old boy took a shot at him with this,” he said. “He missed by a mile. I took it off him before he hurt hisself.”

  Martineau held out his hand for the revolver. “Did Starling return the fire?” he asked.

  “No sir. He took a look at us—that’s when I saw his face—and pointed his pistol. Then he seemed to change his mind. He scarpered without shooting at us.”

  “Saving his ammunition,” said Martineau. “It sounds as if he hasn’t a spare clip.” He “broke” the revolver carefully, so that the six shells were ejected into the palm of his hand. There were five unused. He reloaded with them, and put the gun in his pocket.

  “If we aren’t careful,” he said, “some good man is going to lose his life on this job. Go and get on the phone to Superintendent Clay. Tell him what’s happened. Tell him it’s my urgent request that the men surrounding this building be issued firearms. The sooner the better.”

  “Very good, sir,” said the constable. He turned away, and almost bumped into Ducklin, who was taking the last flight of stairs at speed.

  “What’s happened, sir?” asked Ducklin breathlessly.

  “Starling’s on this roof,” said the inspector shortly. “You go back to the Royal Lancs, and take the lift and get on the roof. I’ll be near that skylight. You’ll be able to look down and tell me what’s going on. Off you go, at the double.”

  “Yessir,” said Ducklin. He went pattering down the stairs. Left alone, Martineau took the revolver from his pocket. “Now then, Don my boy,” he said as he went toward the skylight, “we’ll see what we can do for you.”

  He climbed onto the two tables and stooped beneath the open window. It was propped open to an angle of forty-five degrees by an iron bracket. He put out his head for a fraction of a second, looking in one direction only. Then he looked around the tilted window. The section of sloping roof was deserted. He climbed out onto the slates.

  This was no roof with a strong parapet like that of the hotel across the alley. If a man slipped on the slates, there was only a narrow iron rain trough to stop him from falling into the street below. But beyond this outer slope there was another bay of the roof, where two sections of slates sloped down to a gutter. That was half of the roof. Another inner bay and an outer slope made up the other half.

  Martineau approached the crest of the outer slope. Before he showed his head against the sky he looked up at the roof of the Royal Lancaster, but Ducklin was not yet in position. He decided that he could not afford to wait for Ducklin. He reached up and put his fingers over a ridge tile, then he pulled himself up and took two quick looks. The first inner bay was empty. He scrambled over with relief. Now, at least, he could not roll off the roof.

  He looked up again, and saw Ducklin staring down. The man’s red face was redder than ever with excitement, and his prominent blue eyes were popping. The inspector could see the color of them even at that distance.

  “In the next bay,” the detective bellowed. “Behind the chimney stack.”

  There was the sharp crack of Starling’s pistol, and stone dust flew from the parapet. Ducklin discreetly bobbed down out of sight.

  “That’s four,” Martineau muttered. “He has at least six left.”

  He did not relish the idea of looking over into the next bay and being sniped from behind the chimney stack. What was Starling doing there anyway? Was he going to fight it out from there? Or was he looking for a way down?

  He crawled up the slates and raised his head just high enough for him to see the top of the chimney stack. It was at the end of the bay, overlooking a two-story drop onto the sloping roof of an adjoining brush factory.

  He walked along the gutter to the end of the bay, then he got on his hands and knees to look over. Starling was doing the same thing. Martineau pulled back out of sight as Starling fired.

  “Hard cheddar, Don,” the inspector called mockingly. “You need some practice with that thing.”

  Starling’s reply was a mouthful of lurid invective, and Martineau grinned. He had seen what he wanted to see. There were no fall pipes on that side of the building, but the chimney stack itself jutted like a buttress into the adjoining property, and it was roughly masoned. A descent could perhaps be made by means of fingers and toes, but it would be a hazardous task even for a good climber.

  “If you try to climb down that stack, I’ve got you,” he called. “You can’t get away.”

  “I’ll get away, you swaggering monkey,” Starling shouted, evidently beside himself with rage.

  Martineau pondered. Why not make the man fight? It was an even chance. It might mean promotion, or it might mean a vacant inspectorship in the Granchester City Police. It was sometimes an advantage for a man to have no children. He could take chances with an easy conscience.

  “I’ve sent for some more men,” he shouted. “If you want to have a bash you’ll have to do it now. There’s only you and me on this roof.”

  Apparently he was not believed. The shouted reply more than suggested that he was a liar.

  “Come on, Don,” he urged, not caring a great deal what happened. “I’m waiting for you.”

  If Starling accepted the challenge, and proved himself the better man with a gun, who would be sorry? Julia, for a few weeks, until she saw somebody who might make her a second husband. Lucky Lusk? For a day or two. His mates on the force? There would be an even balance of open regret about his death and secret pleasure in a sensation. Life must go on, and men soon forget. Every sergeant in the C.I.D. would contribute toward a wreath, and hope to be promoted into the vacancy made by the death of an inspector. Ducklin up there would express his sorrow in a very ostensible sort of way, and hope to be promoted into the place of the sergeant who was made inspector.

  Martineau turned his head and looked up. Ducklin was kneeling behind the parapet. Only part of the red face could
be seen. The blue eyes were gazing intently in the direction of the chimney stack.

  The inspector wondered why Starling was sitting still. That was not his way at all. If there was a move to be made, he would make it. One thing seemed obvious. He hesitated to start making the difficult climb down the chimney stack while there was a policeman on the roof with him. Did he think that the police were murderers? Did he think that a policeman would shoot him or dislodge him while he was making the climb?

  “I didn’t know you were windy,” Martineau taunted. “You must be getting old. Scared of a fight with one copper!”

  “I’m not scared of you, you bastard,” came the reply.

  “Of course you are. You know I can always lick you. It’s all right making threats when you know I can’t touch you. What about it now, when there’s just the two of us?”

  Starling did not reply, but Ducklin up above appeared to go suddenly crazy with excitement. “Look out, look out!” he screeched. “He’s coming!”

  Martineau took Furnisher’s old revolver from his pocket, and thumbed the safety catch. He grinned, because he felt curiously irresponsible. This was it, the last encounter. Don Starling was coming, because he had remembered that Harry Martineau was never a bar. And possibly he expected to meet an unarmed man.

  Looking up Martineau saw fingers appear on the apex of the roof. They were followed by the head and shoulders, hands and arms of Starling.

  Both men fired. Martineau felt a hard blow on his chest, and he was knocked backward against the slope of the bay. He saw the pistol fly out of Starling’s hand and go spinning in the air above and behind him: a mediocre shot but an extremely lucky one.

  Starling disappeared in pursuit of the pistol. Martineau sat up. There was a feeling of numbness in his chest: no pain but a trickling uneasiness. He had no time to think about it. He scrambled up the slates and looked over the apex in time to see Starling stooping in the gutter in the next bay. He was picking up the pistol with his left hand. His right hand was a red ruin of blood.

  Martineau fired and missed. Starling vainly squeezed an immovable trigger. Martineau could not steady his gun again, because he was seized by a sudden irrepressible need to rid his lungs of something by coughing. He clung to the ridge tile and coughed, and never took his eyes from Starling. The latter failed to free the damaged mechanism of the pistol and in anger he threw it at his enemy—a poor throw with the left hand—and fled. He ran along the bottom of the bay, hopping from side to side of the narrow gutter.

  The coughing bout ended. Martineau spat bloody fluid onto the slates. Then he put the revolver in his pocket and went after his man.

  With an injured hand it was impossible for Starling to climb down the chimney stack. The only thing he could do was to go over the edge at the end of the gutter, with the desperate intention of hanging for a moment by his hands and then dropping two stories to the roof of the brush factory. He swung his legs over, but he was holding the coping with his head and shoulders above it when Martineau tackled him.

  The inspector flung himself full length. He appeared to reach for Starling’s throat, but his big hands did not seek the windpipe. He grasped great handfuls of the coat at the lapels, and held them stiff-armed. Starling could go neither forward nor back.

  The brown eyes blazed into the slightly glazed, calm, relentless gray ones. The fugitive struck once, and once only, with his wounded right hand. Then he let go of the coping and punched with his left. Hampered by the coping, he could not put much weight behind the blows, but they stung Martineau. Still keeping his arms rigid, the inspector wriggled and pushed his way forward. There was a second of dreadful strain when, with all his captive’s weight suspended, the edge of the coping seemed about to break the ulna bones of his forearms, and then his own head and shoulders were over the edge. Lying flat in the gutter, he had Starling hanging straight down below him, suspended by the lapels of his coat. Starling’s left hand could no longer reach the face which looked down at him.

  Hanging there, Starling tried to pry loose the inspector’s grip with his left hand. But it was an iron grip: the fingers were locked around the strong worsted-and-buckram of the lapels. The captive could have swung up his feet and pushed against the wall of the building, to break the grip with the strength of his legs, but even Don Starling did not have the nerve to push himself away like that, and fall head first for two stories.

  “Let me go, blast you!” he stormed, tugging and jerking desperately.

  Martineau had another coughing fit, but it did not affect the rigidity of his arms and hands. He spat blood, turning his head slightly and carefully avoiding the man who hung below him.

  “You’ve had it,” Starling panted. “I got you in the lungs. You’ll go before I do. You’ll be the Chief of Police in Hell by the time I get there.”

  Martineau was silent, saving his breath. He could not even grin.

  “You’re dying,” came the breathless insinuation. “You’ll have to let me go. You can’t hold on much longer.”

  Martineau spat more blood.

  “You’re killing yourself, man. The effort is killing you. Let me go, and save your own life.”

  But Martineau did not let go.

  “Oh, God damn and blast you,” the captive snarled, out of patience. “Die and rot. Die and be bloody burned. I’ll laugh at your funeral notice, you stupid bastard. You always were a smug, clever, stupid bastard. But you’ve had it, chum, you’ve had it. Don Starling’s got you, like he said he would. Remember that when your throat’s rattling, will you? I said I’d get you, and I did.”

  They were in the same position when help arrived: Starling arguing, jeering, and struggling; Martineau just holding on. Two strong young constables lay down on either side of the inspector, and the three of them hauled Starling up onto the roof. As soon as he was on his feet he tried to kick Martineau, but the constables yanked him away. He fought them. He succeeded in giving one of them a swollen eye. They restrained him and overpowered him, but they did not strike him. It would have been a shame to hit him. One does not hit a man who has not long to live.

  PART V The Hangman’s Mercy

  1

  The condemned man did not eat a hearty breakfast. He pushed the food aside and asked for more coffee. He also demanded his daily allowance of ten cigarettes.

  They offered him one cigarette and told him that this did not count as a day. Nine o’clock in the morning was his time, when the day had only just begun. At nine o’clock he would be leaving them, and according to the rules…

  He said to hell with the rules. It was a day all right for him, and he was entitled to a condemned man’s ten cigarettes. He became excited and slightly hysterical.

  For the sake of a quiet death they gave him the cigarettes. They knew that hysteria could be highly infectious on execution mornings, with a thousand uneasy fate-ridden men still locked in their cells. The prisoners knew why they were still locked up, and they were disturbed by a vague fellow feeling for the man who was about to die. All night they had been restless, and now one yell could create a cursing, bawling, rattling, banging pandemonium.

  Starling, the condemned man, smoked incessantly as he waited for death. He had little to say, and his warders were relieved that it should be so. Better a man preoccupied and surly than one who moaned and pleaded. Let him be quiet, that was all they wanted. Let there be no uproar.

  When the chaplain came Starling scarcely listened to him, but the chaplain—a young man—was insistent. He begged the prisoner to listen, to join him in prayer, to trust in God’s mercy.

  Starling looked at the young man with many years to live, and laughed in his face.

  “God’s mercy, yes,” he said. “Maybe, but I doubt it. There’s no evidence. The hangman is the visible hand of God and the sheriff, and I’ll get no mercy from the hangman.”

  Pleased with his own words, he lit another cigarette and blew smoke at the chaplain. It was the only way to deal with this thing, he believed. Be tou
gh, treat it as nothing, refuse to think deeply about it. Don’t think at all, in fact. It was nothing but a short walk, a few seconds of numb waiting, a brief agony perhaps, and then oblivion.

  There, he was thinking about it. All through this interfering priest.

  “The worst thing about this job is having to listen to a bloody parson,” he said. “Am I to be hanged or bored to death?”

  The chaplain was too sorry to be offended. And Starling, a fool but not a blind fool, knew why. The chaplain did not want a man to die unrepentant, with awful sins burdening his soul. Starling could have talked to him about the crime, explaining how he had not really intended to kill that girl or any girl, and it would have been repentance of a sort. But he had already explained to a jury—or at least, his counsel had—and the explanation had not been accepted. So what was the use of talking to a parson? Besides, to die excusing himself was not Starling’s idea of stoic behavior.

  He snarled at the chaplain. His voice again warned of that unwanted hysteria, and the chaplain regretfully withdrew.

  Starling knew how he was going to die. Like a man. Why seek mercy where mercy was not? He would get no mercy from the hangman.

  He knew how he would meet the hangman. Cool and sardonic, he would say: “I always wanted to make your acquaintance, mister, but not as a client of yours.” That would be remembered. It would get outside. People would know that he had not cringed at the final test.

  2

  There was a stir outside the door of the condemned cell. The hangman had arrived. Starling lit the last cigarette he would ever smoke, but in spite of his determination to be cool his hands trembled and his heart thumped. The Chief Prison Officer and a subordinate entered the cell. They were his escort to the scaffold, and they were followed by the hangman and his assistant.

  Starling had imagined that the hangman would not be able to meet his glance, but his imagination had misled him. It was he who looked away first. And, somehow, he could not utter his brave remark. He could not summon the mood, the ease of manner. The hangman’s level glance would make the words seem silly. He was a burly man, clean and fresh-faced; a type who might be seen on any street in any English town. He offered Starling his hand according to custom, and his grip was casually powerful. His assistant was a younger, fresher-faced edition of himself.