The Z Murders

by J. Jefferson Farjeon

  “All right. My sister told me about your telephone call, and I enlisted her on our side. You see, she has faith in me, just as I have in you. But the inspector also telephoned, and he isn’t quite so trusting. I imagine he telephoned from your studio, because he was there a few minutes afterwards—”

  She stared at him, but he hardly saw her in the darkness; he was following a sudden thought of his own.

  “I say—how was it the detective didn’t bump into you?” he asked. “Were you there together?”

  “No,” she muttered. “But—I heard someone coming, and—”

  “Bolted?”

  “Yes.”

  “For Paddington?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me, Miss Wynne. Did you just miss the 5.15 for Bristol?”

  “Just? No, by about ten minutes.”

  “Then I must have been at Paddington before you. I missed it by ten seconds. You couldn’t have gone direct.”

  “Is that a question?”

  “Please!”

  “You’re good at cross-examination.”

  “Rather—when I’m on the side of the person I’m cross-examining! What caused your delay?”

  “Well, you see—when I left the studio, I hadn’t quite made up my mind.”

  “You mean, you had to decide whether it was wise or not to take this trip to Bristol?”

  “Yes. And now, please, I want you to tell me something. How did you know I’d gone to Bristol?”

  “By a bit of simple Sherlock Holmes work. Your A B C was open at Bristol, and as I was staring at the name, a paper-boy was calling out the latest news.” He paused, and felt her sudden shudder. “You know what it was, of course?” he asked, softly.

  “You mean—no, tell me!” she answered.

  “The second murder, Miss Wynne,” he said. “The second murder that has brought Inspector James here, and that has brought you here—”

  “It didn’t bring me here!” she interposed, breathlessly. “I didn’t know anything about it until I got here!” She stopped short, and began to falter. “At least—no, I didn’t know—but—”

  She floundered into an unhappy silence.

  Longing to press her further, but deciding that she needed a few moments to recover herself, Richard tried to work out her movements in the light of this fresh information.

  She had run away from the studio when Dutton had called that morning. Then there was a big blank. During that blank she had received and sent a telegram. There was no intimation regarding the contents of the telegram she had received, but the telegram she had sent had contained the words, “terribly urgent.” Shortly before four, she had telephoned to him at Richmond from the studio. Assumedly in connection with the matter raised in the telegram. Assumedly, but not certainly. She had heard James arriving, and had run away from the studio a second time. She had not decided whether to go to Bristol or not. Deciding, at last, to go, she had reached Paddington Station at, say, 5.25, while he had been having tea there. Assumedly, she tucked herself away in some other spot till the 6.30 train started. Hidden herself, in fact, which might account for the fact that she had not come across a later edition of the afternoon paper containing the report of the second murder. She did not know of this second murder. Incredible as this seemed, in view of her movements, Richard accepted her assurance without question. She must, however, have made her trip to Bristol for some purpose related to the murder! That, also, seemed incredible, but also had to be accepted without question, since the long arm of coincidence could not stretch so far as this. Reaching Bristol, she had slipped immediately from the train, and had disappeared. She had then, Richard believed, received a shock. The shock, perhaps, of discovering the second murder. But what reason had she for connecting the two murders? Did she share the secret knowledge which Inspector James had passed on to Richard.…

  “Miss Wynne!” he exclaimed, abruptly. “Have you any reason to suppose that this second tragedy is connected with the first?”

  Again the abruptness of his question caught her unprepared.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, weakly.

  “Well, I’ll put it another way,” he replied, trying to ignore her distress. “Do you know of anything that suggests the two murders were committed by the same hand?”

  “Do—you?” Her words came faintly.

  “Yes, I do,” he answered, after a moment’s rapid consideration. James had entrusted Richard with his secret in order to incite Richard’s co-operation; Richard was now entrusting it to Sylvia with the same object. “Another of those crimson Z’s was found near the spot where the second victim fell.”

  She swayed against him. He stopped, and put his arm round her to keep her from falling. Heaven and hell combined in that moment, confusing it utterly.

  The moment passed. She raised the head that had lain limply against his shoulder, and her eyes bore a new light. There was appeal in the eyes, the appeal of one who felt herself beaten. “Now I am going to receive her full confidence!” he thought, in happy exultation. “Now, at last, we shall be able to work together!” Unconsciously, his arm tightened around her.

  But the light suddenly changed. She was no longer appealing to him. She was afraid of him. And, a second later, he learned the reason.

  “That truce!” she whispered. “You haven’t told me—were there any terms?”

  Richard gritted his teeth in his disappointment. He forgot that, but for the truce, he might not have been able to contrive this interview.

  “I’m supposed to have an interview with James when it is over,” he said, bluntly. “At eight o’clock to-morrow.”

  Her fear increased.

  “To—tell him what I tell you?”

  “That’s his hope,” Richard answered. “But all hopes aren’t fulfilled, you know. It’s understood—distinctly—that I use my own discretion. This isn’t—spy work.”

  The damage had been done, however. He realised it at once. Her trust in his good faith remained, but even the faithful can stumble if over-weighted with dangerous knowledge…

  “Then I’m not to know?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Does that mean this is the end?”

  She looked at him earnestly, and now some of the appeal returned.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It depends on whether the—partner is still willing to help me in the dark—and whether I have any right to ask him to.”

  “Right?” exclaimed Richard, hope returning.

  Our desires are big, but we are content with little!

  “Haven’t I already given you the right?” he went on. “I said that you could draw on me to the last ounce.”

  “But now—”

  “The position’s unaltered, as far as I’m concerned. I meant what I said. How about testing me?”

  He waited anxiously for her answer. She turned away, and stared along the black road. He would have given much to have been inside her mind at that moment—to have known the pros and the cons that were battling there. At last she turned back to him, the battle over.

  “Will you come with me to Charlton?” she asked. “Now?”

  Chapter XVII

  What Happened at Midnight

  If one man’s meat is another man’s poison, one person’s murder may be another person’s income. Thus tragedy and happiness interweave, forming life’s queer pattern. Fall over a cliff to-morrow, and somebody will benefit from your fall—a press photographer, a gossip-monger, a little boy who had previously been rather bored with existence, or an aunt in India.

  It has already been shown how the murder of John Amble brought pennies, and at least one sixpence, to a small newsvendor in London. He was merely one of hundreds of newsvendors who reaped a similar harvest. Now, in Bristol, the murder of an unknown woman was bringing unexpected affluence to taxi-driv
ers. They had taken journalists to Charlton, officials to Charlton, sight-seers to Charlton, and others unclassified. They had driven one wicked old man who, shedding false tears, had hoped to identify the dead woman as his wife; and they had driven his wife after him, to bring him home again. Charlton, a peaceful rural village, preferring sign-posts to petrol pumps, and inhabited mainly by hens, sheep, cattle, a white pony and an enormous pig, had become a temporary parking-ground, while its quiet greens buzzed beneath the louder buzzing of aeroplanes. There was buzzing, also, in the Carpenter’s Arms, where glasses were busy and had to be re-washed an unusual number of times.

  And all because, earlier in the day, a woman had walked across a gently-sloping field, and had suddenly dropped down dead.

  If the woman had realised how she was going to change the quiet scene on which her eyes rested as she crossed the field, her last moment would have been illuminated by a startling vision; but, happily, such visions are spared us. We pass, merely guessing, from second to second, and only know for certain the second that embraces us.

  Among the taximen who were affected by this woman’s death, two stand out prominently. Each ran up a record fare, and of one we shall speak later. The other was Ted Diggs, of whom we must speak now.

  It was Diggs who had driven the hopeful old man’s wife after him, and who had congratulated himself subsequently on his own bachelorhood. He had also driven the father of Flying-Officer Turndike, of the Royal Air Force, to Charlton—the aviator who had seen the woman fall dead—and had been the first to learn that the officer had shown his interest in aviation at the age of three by trying to fly into a garden from a roof. Turndike’s father had increased the fare by going from Charlton to Filton, where the aerodrome was, and finally back to Bristol station, very late, to catch the last night train to London. The 11.15. The train of despair, that pitched you into Paddington at twenty minutes to three in the morning.

  But that was Turndike Senior’s affair. Ted Diggs’s own affair, after having deposited Turndike Senior at his platform and discussed the theory of Jack the Ripper’s ghost with an imaginative porter, was to seek an earlier bed and to enjoy a well-earned rest. But the best-laid schemes of mice and taximen gang aft agley, and as Diggs turned out of the station yard and began wending his way homewards, he found himself unexpectedly hailed by a young man who stepped out of a narrow side-street.

  “Are you engaged?” asked the young man.

  “What—at this time o’ night?” replied Diggs. “Yes—to a bed!”

  “We want to go to Charlton,” said the young man, “and it’ll be worth a couple of pounds to you. Think you could postpone that bed?”

  Charlton again! And a couple of pounds! And “we”! Where was the other?

  Diggs strained his eyes, and found the other standing a yard or two off. A girl! H’m—did that make any difference?

  “It’s rather urgent,” pressed the young man, in the tone of one who was anxious to make his point agreeably, but who held insistence in reserve.

  “Ay, and it’s also rather late,” answered Diggs.

  And he was also rather tired. But—a girl? Could you expect a girl to walk six or seven miles at night? She might be rather tired, too. And he hadn’t got a nagging wife to go back to.

  Diggs was not a saint. He was, however, just one point above what a sceptical world expected of him, and perhaps something in the attitude of the girl reached him through the darkness. In any case, and whatever the reason, he suddenly decided that he would take on the job, and he told his passengers to hop in. And thus began the most amazing trip of his existence. A trip less amazing, however, than that of the other Bristol taximan who, before cock-crow, ran up a record fare.

  “What part of Charlton?” inquired Diggs, as the passengers got into the cab. “You ain’t goin’ sight-seeing at midnight, are you?”

  Apparently the young man was not quite sure of the part. He glanced inquiringly at the girl. The girl hesitated, then murmured something.

  “The Carpenter’s Arms,” said the young man; and added, after the girl had murmured something else, “Only stop just before we reach Charlton, will you?”

  Diggs nodded. Seemed a bit mad. Still, it wasn’t his business, and two pounds was two pounds at any hour of the day or night.

  “Well, that’s all fixed,” said Richard Temperley, as they settled in their seats and the car began to move. “And what do we do when we get to the Carpenter’s Arms?”

  It was a long while before Sylvia replied to this question. The car slipped through the dark streets, went by a lightless cinema and over a bridge. Beneath the bridge dark water flowed, while on their left rose the slim ghosts of masts. On the morrow the sun would transform the masts into happy substance, and some of them would move over water no longer dark towards the open sea; but now they belonged to a different world, a world of eerie fancies and dark thoughts.…Up a steep hill, where sleeping tram-lines were momentarily awakened by the car’s headlights. Up on to a green common…

  “Of course—it’ll be closed,” said Sylvia.

  “Yes, it’s a bit latish,” agreed Richard, as though there had been no interim between the question and the answer, “but I suppose there’ll be a bell. Do we ring it?”

  “No.”

  “Then how do we get in? Are you expected?”

  She only replied to the first question.

  “I—I don’t believe we shall go in,” she said.

  “Don’t—believe?” he repeated, trying for her sake to remain matter of fact, and to conceal his bewilderment.

  “No.”

  “But you’re not quite certain?”

  “We’ll know soon.”

  “Right. I’m trying not to worry you, Miss Wynne, but—well, I’ve got to ask a question or two, haven’t I?”

  “You’re being—wonderful.”

  The adjective made the inside of the taxi the chosen spot in all creation. After all, what did the outside of the taxi matter? Richard strove to remain practical through his elation, and also to put the elation in its proper place. Naturally, a girl who was receiving the kind of help he was giving would use glorified adjectives once in a while…they didn’t mean anything…

  “Here’s another question, Miss Wynne,” he said. “You’re not sure whether we shall be going inside the Carpenter’s Arms—but do you know where you’re going to sleep to-night?”

  “I’m not even sure of that,” she admitted.

  “Got a bag, or anything?”

  “No.”

  “Just left London as you are, eh?”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “Not even a toothbrush!” He smiled. “Aren’t we a couple of derelicts?”

  She smiled, and he felt that she had moved an inch closer to him. He blessed the inch. But the smile was only momentary.

  “Would you find out where we are?” she whispered.

  He put his head out of the window.

  “Where’s this, Bill Jones?” he asked.

  “Westbury,” answered the driver. “Jest comin’ to it. And my name’s Ted Diggs!”

  “Thank you, Mr. Diggs,” replied Richard, and brought his head in again.

  “Did you hear him?” he inquired. “We’re just reaching Westbury, and his name is Diggs.”

  This time the humour missed her. As they descended into Westbury she repeated the name under her breath, and suddenly asked: “Then we’re about two miles from Charlton, aren’t we?”

  “Yes,” he answered, and wondered how she knew. He had gained an impression that she was not familiar with the district. Then a possible solution occurred to him. She might have made this journey once before. Between nine and eleven p.m.

  They ascended out of Westbury, which stood in a little dip, and wound through a curly, low-hedged lane. Westwards, the dark undulations looked gloomy and desolate. All at once, her fi
ngers tightened on his arm. It was his first intimation that she had laid her fingers there. “Ask him to stop!” she whispered.

  Richard gave the instruction, and the car came to a standstill. His companion’s mind seemed also to have come to a standstill, and Richard decided that it was time for him to assist it. “Tell me, Miss Wynne,” he said in a low voice. “Is there any slight danger to you if you go to the Carpenter’s Arms?”

  “I—don’t know,” she answered. “I must think for a moment.”

  “No, let me do the thinking for you. There’s no danger to me, anyway, is there?”

  “I don’t see how there could be.”

  “Very well, then. Here’s a suggestion. You stay here and wait in the car, while I go on and do—” He paused. “Whatever you would have done yourself. Is that possible?”

  “Would you?” she faltered.

  “You’ve no need to ask that,” he said. “Just tell me what it is.”

  “It’s really—quite simple, if you’d do it,” she whispered, after a pause. “And—no, there wouldn’t be any danger. It’s—it’s just to walk by the Carpenter’s Arms—it’s a little way round that bend on the right—and then come back and tell me if you meet anybody.”

  “That sounds distinctly simple!” he responded, in surprise.

  “Only don’t go in the hotel, or don’t knock, or anything.”

  “You want me to avoid attracting any attention?”

  “Yes. Go beyond the hotel. Perhaps a hundred yards.”

  “And suppose I do meet somebody?”

  “Then come back, and tell me what they’re like.”

  “I see. Come back and report to you what I find, or what I don’t find. Right, Miss Wynne. You shall have the report in five minutes. Meanwhile, I demand one thing in return.”

  “What is it?”

  “That you don’t move from this car unless some real danger presents itself.”

  “I won’t.”

  “That’s a promise?”

  “I won’t break it.”

  He took her hand, gave it a reassuring squeeze, and stepped out on to the road, closing the door of the car after him. Ted Diggs, waiting patiently on his seat, turned his head.