For the man had made a quick rush forward. But the Scotland Yard officer and Hazell were on him in a moment, and a few seconds later the handcuffs clicked on his wrists. Then they flung the door open, and there, lying in the comer, gagged and bound, was Horace Carr-Mathers.
An exclamation of joy broke forth from Wingrave, as he opened his knife to cut the cords. But Hazell stopped him.
“Just half a moment,” he said: “I want to see how they’ve tied him up.”
A peculiar method had been adopted in doing this. His wrists were fastened behind his back, a stout cord was round his body just under the armpits, and another cord above the knees. These were connected by a slack bit of rope.
“All right!” went on Hazell; “let’s get the poor lad out of his troubles—there, that’s better. How do you feel, my boy?”
“Awfully stiff!” said Horace, “but I’m not hurt. I say, sir,” he continued to Wingrave, “how did you know I was here? I am glad you’ve come.”
“The question is how did you get here?” replied Wingrave. “Mr Hazell, here, seemed to know where you were, but it’s a puzzle to me at present.”
“If you’d come half an hour later you wouldn’t have found him,” growled the man who was handcuffed. “I ain’t so much to blame as them as employed me.”
“Oh, is that how the land lies?” exclaimed Hazell. “I see. You shall tell us presently, my boy, how it happened. Meanwhile. Mr Mills, I think we can prepare a little trap—eh?”
In five minutes all was arranged. A couple of the navvies were brought up from the line, one stationed outside to guard against trains, and with certain other instructions, the other being inside the hut with the rest of them. A third navvy was also dispatched for the police.
“How are they coming?” asked Hazell of the handcuffed man.
“They were going to take a train down from London to Rockhampstead on the East-Northern, and drive over. It’s about ten miles off.”
“Good! they ought soon to be here,” replied Hazell, as he munched some biscuits and washed them down with a draught of milk, after which he astonished them all by solemnly going through one of his “digestive exercises.”
A little later they heard the sound of wheels on a road beside the line. Then the man on watch said, in gruff tones:
“The boy’s inside!”
But they found more than the boy inside, and an hour later all three conspirators were safely lodged in Longmoor gaol.
“Oh, it was awfully nasty, I can tell you,” said Horace Carr-Mathers, as he explained matters afterwards. “I went into the corridor, you know, and was looking about at things, when all of a sudden I felt my coat-collar grasped behind, and a hand was laid over my mouth. I tried to kick and shout, but it was no go. They got me into the compartment, stuffed a handkerchief into my mouth, and tied it in. It was just beastly. Then they bound me hand and foot, and opened the window on the right-hand side—opposite the corridor. I was in a funk, for I thought they were going to throw me out, but one of them told me to keep my pecker up, as they weren’t going to hurt me. Then they let me down out of the window by that slack rope, and made it fast to the handle of the door outside. It was pretty bad, There was I, hanging from the door-handle in a sort of doubled-up position, my back resting on the foot-board of the carriage, and the train rushing along like mad. I felt sick and awful, and I had to shut my eyes. I seemed to hang there for ages.”
“I told you you only examined the inside of the train,” said Thorpe Hazell to Wingrave. “I had my suspicions that he was somewhere on the outside all the time, but I was puzzled to know where. It was a clever trick.”
“Well,” went on the boy, “I heard the window open above me after a bit. I looked up and saw one of the men taking the rope off the handle. The train was just beginning to slow down. Then he hung out of the window, dangling me with one hand. It was horrible. I was hanging below the footboard now. Then the train came almost to a stop, and someone caught me round the waist. I lost my senses for a minute or two, and then I found myself lying in the hut.”
“Well, Mr Hazell,” said the assistant-superintendent, “you were perfectly right, and we all owe you a debt of gratitude.”
“Oh,” said Hazell, “it was only a guess at the best. I presumed it was simply kidnapping, and the problem to be solved was how and where the boy was got off the train without injury. It was obvious that he had been disposed of before the train reached London. There was only one other inference. The man on duty was evidently the confederate, for, if not, his presence would have stopped the whole plan of action. I’m very glad to have been of any use. There are interesting points about the case, and it has been a pleasure to me to undertake it.”
A little while afterwards Mr Carr-Mathers himself called on Hazell to thank him.
“I should like,” he said, “to express my deep gratitude substantially; but I understand you are not an ordinary detective. But is there any way in which I can serve you, Mr Hazell?”
“Yes—two ways.”
“Please name them.”
“I should be sorry for Mr Wingrave to get into trouble through this affair—or Dr Spring either.”
“I understand you, Mr Hazell. They were both to blame, in a way. But I will see that Dr Spring’s reputation does not suffer, and that Wingrave comes out of it harmlessly.”
“Thank you very much.”
“You said there was a second way in which I could serve you.”
“So there is. At Dunn’s sale last month you were the purchaser of two first editions of ‘The New Bath Guide.’ If you cared to dispose of one, I—”
“Say no more, Mr Hazell. I shall be glad to give you one for your collection.”
Hazell stiffened.
“You misunderstand me!” he exclaimed icily. “I was about to add that if you cared to dispose of a copy I would write you out a cheque.”
“Oh, certainly,” replied Mr Carr-Mathers with a smile, “I shall be extremely pleased.”
Whereupon the transaction was concluded.
SECRET SUGGESTION, by Vincent H. O’Neil
“You should know I’m a cop. A homicide detective, actually.”
“All right.” A pause. “That can’t be an easy job, in a city this large.”
“Well it is, and it isn’t. The clearance rate is pretty low, so you don’t catch too much heat from the bosses if you’re beating it. One or two easy cases—like when you catch the perpetrator at the scene holding the weapon—can really help your numbers.”
“That sounds a little modest.”
“Oh, I’m good at what I do…I just wouldn’t say that in front of another cop.”
“Hmm. That’s a nice lead-in for my next question: Doesn’t the police department have staff psychiatrists? Someone you could talk to for free?”
“Sure…sure they do. And I’ve heard they’re pretty good…for standard stuff, like cops who are thinking of eating their guns.”
“So whatever brought you here isn’t ‘standard’?”
A long pause.
“Well you tell me, Doc. Is it standard for a homicide cop to think a ghost helped solve a murder?”
* * * *
“You’re smiling, Doc.”
“Only because you are.”
“Is that a bad sign?”
“Not usually. I tell most of my patients that humor is a good release valve.”
“Even when they’re laughing their heads off about something that isn’t funny?”
“It’s a lot better than screaming their heads off.” Shared chuckling. “So tell me more.”
“Okay.” Slight pause. “I’m calling it a ghost because I don’t know what it is…if it’s anything at all. Let me give you a little background: I’ve been working homicide for two years, and I was taught to avoid jumping to conclusions. So I approach every investigation with an open mind. I focus on the facts of the case, the evidence, and the interviews. Drawing conclusions too early can make you miss something.
“Sounds like you’d make a good psychiatrist.”
“People do open up to me, if that’s what you mean. Somebody once told me I have an ‘empathetic character’…anyway, I was working a big case just a few months ago, and I started getting these…feelings…impulses…that weren’t like me at all. It was really strange.”
“This had never happened before?”
“Not even when I was a rookie.”
“You said this case happened a few months ago. I assume you’ve had others since then.”
“Oh yeah…the phone’s always ringing in Homicide. And I see where you’re going: I haven’t had a similar experience with other cases.”
“Was there anything unusual about that particular investigation? Something that might have struck a chord with you, perhaps?”
“I thought of that. I gave it a lot of thought, in fact. But no, there didn’t seem to be anything that should have got under my skin. The victim was rich, educated, successful…and at first it looked like it might have been a chance killing, like a mugging that went wrong.” A few seconds’ silence. “Nothing special.”
“You might not be allowed to answer this, so feel free to say so. This sounds like the Meriweather murder.”
“It is. And since it’s already been to trial, and since that was in the news, I can discuss it with you. Not everything, but the stuff that’s common knowledge.”
“I just thought it might help if you could speak in specifics…we might find something in that investigation that was influencing you. Something you might not have noticed, perhaps.”
“Good. That’s good—it makes sense. So here goes: Lawrence Meriweather was shot once at a secluded spot overlooking the river. The gun was next to the body, but we could tell it wasn’t a suicide.”
“I know that was ruled out…but how?”
“Several different things: The angle of entry, no gunpowder residue on his hands, no scorching on the clothes.” Throat clearing. “His watch and his wallet were still on him, but that doesn’t always rule out robbery; sometimes the gun goes off accidentally, and the mugger just runs for it. What most bothered me was that we couldn’t figure out why he was there in the first place.”
“The papers said he was found near a highway rest stop. One of those ‘Scenic Overlook’ spots.”
“Right. That’s where he parked his car, and there’s a footpath through a wooded area that leads to where his body was found. The people in Meriweather’s office said he’d been acting a little distracted, and so we wondered if he hadn’t gone out there looking for a quiet spot to think.” A deep exhalation. “That was where I got the first feeling, the first…sensation. At the crime scene.”
“You believe that was when this ghost, or this entity, contacted you?”
“Yeah. I didn’t know it at the time, of course, but that’s what I think now.”
“You felt an emotion that was out of place?”
“Yes. I was doing my initial survey. A jogger had found the body, so it hadn’t been out there even a day. We already knew who he was, and I suppose that made this case a little different, but I started experiencing something that was just…out of place.”
“Like what?”
“Fear. I mean heart-pounding, clammy hands, fight-or-flight dread. I’ve been in a couple of tight spots over the years, and so I recognize the emotion. But this was crazy; it was broad daylight, the guy was dead, I was surrounded by my fellow police…I couldn’t explain it.”
“Did you register anything else?”
“Like what?”
“You mentioned your heart was pounding.”
“You’d make a good interviewer, Doc. You don’t hand out the answers.”
“Most psychiatrists feel it can unduly influence the discussion, or even extract an answer that isn’t…genuine.”
“We do the same thing, in our interviews.”
“I imagine it’s for the same reason—to get an untainted response.”
“Not really. Most of the time we’re trying to get someone to tell us something they said they didn’t know.”
A chuckle. “That’s funny. In a way, that’s what I’m trying to do right now.”
* * * *
“To answer your question, I didn’t feel anything but the emotion, and my reaction to that.”
“Did the feeling stay with you?”
“No. That’s why I kind of dismissed it at first. It went away once I left the scene.”
“Where did you go?”
“The Meriweathers’ place. Big house, acres of land, you’d think the guy could find a quiet spot somewhere on his own property…his wife, Felicia, had started calling around the night before when he didn’t come home. He often stayed late at the office, but she told us he always called to let her know. She’d phoned the family lawyer, and he called the police that night.”
“Don’t you have to wait a certain number of hours before someone can be reported as a missing person?”
“For people like me and you, sure. A rich guy like Meriweather…the department was already looking for him when the jogger found the body. Anyway, my partner and I went to see the widow as soon as we were done with the crime scene. She’s a tough one, you probably read that in the papers…”
“The family lawyer sounded tough, too.”
“Yeah. George Sanderson. He was Meriweather’s buddy from childhood. They played high school football together; Sanderson blocked and Meriweather threw the ball. Pretty much their relationship for the next thirty years.
“He was there for the first interview with the widow, which went pretty well. I didn’t have any more unexplained feelings; it was more like my normal interviews, no emotions at all. Mrs. Meriweather was openly grieving, and I felt it was genuine. She said she hadn’t noticed anything unusual in her husband’s behavior prior to his disappearance, which fit the idea that he was killed in a chance encounter. That is, until we interviewed the people in Meriweather’s office and most of them said he’d been acting screwy.”
“Did you feel anything when you talked to his employees?”
“No. They seemed to have liked Meriweather well enough; more than a few of them said he’d seemed distracted for several days. He’d left the office twice on the day he died, which wasn’t unusual except he hadn’t told anyone where he was going either time. That morning he stepped out for a couple of hours, and late in the afternoon he left and said he wouldn’t be back. His personal assistant asked if he was headed home, and he said yes, but not right away.”
“Did that sound unusual?”
“Not really. Felicia Meriweather was active in the arts scene, so she wasn’t normally home early herself. She went a couple of places the night of the murder, a charity event and then dinner with an old friend. And since we couldn’t pinpoint exactly when her husband died, there was a window of time when she could have gotten out to the river and done it.”
“But you didn’t believe that.”
“Not at first. I did wonder why Meriweather’s wife didn’t notice he was distracted when so many of his employees picked up on it, but there are ways to explain that. And nobody had any idea why he went out to that spot on the river.”
“Including the lawyer?”
“Right. Sanderson was at the residence when we got there, and so I asked him a few questions as well. He didn’t agree with the widow’s assessment of Meriweather’s state of mind, but that was because he’d gotten a strange phone call from him the day before. Sanderson said that Meriweather had wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to be out of town in the next few days, but wouldn’t say what was up. He said Meriweather sounded mildly concerned about something, but since he was the man’s corporate attorney he didn’t t
hink it was anything major. It was the last call Meriweather made before leaving the office—we checked the records.”
“Is that how you found out about the private investigator? From the phone records?”
“Yeah. Turns out that the two hours Meriweather was out of the office that morning he was meeting the PI. He’d just hired him because he was suspicious his wife was having an affair.”
* * * *
“But we didn’t find that out until later, after we’d gone through Meriweather’s phone records. In the meantime we went to his office and interviewed his staff. That’s when we learned that several of them thought something was bugging their boss. None of them had any idea why he’d gone out to that spot, so I decided to go back there. We had people canvassing the area asking questions, but I wanted another look at the crime scene.
“I parked in the rest stop near where Meriweather’s car was found, and then walked into the woods along a foot path that led to the spot. The trail runs along the bluffs over the river, and the view’s pretty good. So it made sense that Meriweather might have come out there to think through whatever was bothering him.
“That’s when I got the feelings again. But this time they were different. On my first visit they’d been sensations of fear, but the second visit I swear I felt…anger. Almost rage, like when you think about somebody who’s really done you dirt.”
“Had anybody done something recently that might have made you resentful?”
“I’m a police officer, Doc; of course they had.”
Laughter. “No, I mean something personal. Maybe something at the scene reminded you of a bad experience, and that triggered the emotion?”
“No, no. Like I said, I really scrubbed the facts of the investigation—and my own reactions—to try and come up with some kind of explanation. Nada. And even if I did, how does that explain one time I felt fear and the next time anger?”
“Well, if you decided there’s no connection to you personally, I can see how you might want to explain the experience in another way…so what happened after that?”
“This was a high-profile investigation, so the paperwork had to be perfect. I had to keep my boss informed of what was going on, and he had to keep the Chief in the loop. The Mayor was involved…this Meriweather had a lot of friends, and they wanted to blame somebody.
The Detective Megapack Page 101