The Z Murders

by J. Jefferson Farjeon

  “I see. Yet the Whitchurch trip is the only trip of the whole damn lot that really matters!”

  “To you!”

  “Oh! So that’s the way of it, eh?”

  “Well—I’m interested, too, naturally. I don’t want any of your cursed sneers! But there’s been too much bungling, and before I decide—”

  “Hey? You decide?”

  “That’s what I said! Before I decide what we’re going to do, I want to know all that’s been done? Do you get the idea?” The man without arms did not reply. “Don’t make any mistake about it—we’re going to have things straight, if we have to stick in this lane all night long. There’s been far too much of this Blind Man’s Buff!”

  “Bungling,” murmured the man without arms. “Yes, maybe there has been bungling. There seems to be some of it at this moment.”

  “Oh, no! This ain’t bungling! This is common sense—reasonable caution. That brain of yours—well, you couldn’t run England with it, you know!”

  “All you can do with your brain is to go round and round in a circle!” rasped the man without arms. “What’s this all about? What do you want? Are you ever coming to the point?”

  “Yes, I’m coming to the point,” answered the countryman, calmly, “and this is what I want. There’s too many blanks in this business. I’m not going an inch farther without knowing the whole darned mess. Where you’ve been—”

  “And where you’ve been!”

  “That’s right. We’ve got to join up our knowledge. And we’ve got to know who’s after us now, and what clues and trails they’ve got. Why, for all we know, there may be somebody waiting for us in Whitchurch at this moment! I’m not going to walk into any booby trap!”

  “All right! Go on, go on, go on!” suddenly screamed the man without arms. A moment later, however, he was quiet again, and was regarding the countryman with a stony, passionless stare.

  “When first we planned this little scheme, a month ago—” began the countryman.

  “When first I planned this little scheme, twenty years ago,” interposed the man without arms.

  “Have it your own way!” snapped the countryman. “When first we planned the actual details of it, anyhow—does that satisfy you? When first we planned the details, everything seemed clear sailing. We found out where Ledlow was living—checked the address, rather—”

  “And the fact that he had changed his name, to Jones,” added the man without arms.

  “Yes. And decided on—our little dose of revenge.”

  “My little dose of revenge,” said the man without arms.

  “Hell, how many more times are you going to interrupt me?” demanded the countryman. “Your little scheme—your revenge! Have the damn lot! And your little hangman’s rope at the end of it! I’m not bidding!”

  He stared at his companion emotionally, while his companion stared unemotionally back.

  “Go on,” said the man without arms.

  The countryman swallowed slowly, and went on:

  “Yes, it is your scheme—you’re quite right—because, if you’d followed my advice you’d have gone straight to Whitchurch and got the thing over at once. But, instead, when you found out that Ledlow was living paralysed in a lonely cottage with only an old woman to look after him—”

  “An old woman who read out all the news to him,” the man without arms interrupted again; and, this time, his expressionless face was momentarily illuminated with a faint, sardonic smile.

  “—you hatched this roundabout way of working your way towards him so that, as you expressed it, you could pay him in his own coin. I wish to God I’d been a little less conscientious when I was ferreting around for you—or that I’d told you a little less of what I found out. Then you’ve never have got hold of this mad idea!”

  “Mad?” repeated the man without arms. He raised a flapping sleeve. The sleeve flapped towards his head, and a moment later his large hat had been tipped back, revealing the usually covered expanse of forehead. The countryman looked away suddenly. His eyes had seen the sight presented many times before; but, at this moment, it unnerved him. Again he swallowed slowly. Then, angry with himself, he turned his head back to his companion. But the forehead was no longer visible. Those flapping sleeves could work uncannily! “Go on,” said the man without arms.

  “Yes, but before I go on,” replied the countryman, rather hollowly, “I’m going to remind you of something—something even—a madman does not forget.”

  He laughed mirthlessly at the crude jest. The man without arms did not join in.

  “So I really am mad, am I?” he said.

  “No, of course you’re not!” exclaimed the countryman, quickly. “Can’t you understand a little joke? What I’ve got to remind you of is this. All I’ve done for you!”

  “What have you done for me?” inquired the man without arms.

  “What have I done for you?” repeated the countryman, raising his eyebrows in amazed indignation. “When Ledlow’s gang double-crossed ours twenty years ago and left your mutilated body for dead, and—and branded their mark on you, who was it came and carted you off before the police or the crows could get hold of you?”

  “You did,” said the man without arms.

  “Yes, and saved you from the lunatic asylum, as well—because that’s all you were fit for at first!—and nursed you back to—”

  “Health?”

  “Damn it, man I’m not a miracle-worker!” fumed the countryman, fiercely. His memories seemed to be giving him courage. “You can’t make a whole man out of half a man! I did what I could, and you’d have been dead or raving if it hadn’t been for me. I nursed you and doctored you, and looked after you, and hid you. You’ve lived in my back room for a third of your life! I even got your damned hook for you and your—your damned other thing—”

  “My silent shooter,” murmured the man without arms, with a glance towards his right sleeve.

  “Yes, your silent shooter,” exclaimed the countryman, “that has given you so much fun during the past twenty-four hours—”

  “And that is going to give me so much more fun before I’ve done with it—or with you,” said the man without arms.

  “Perhaps,” retorted the countryman. “And, after all this, you have the impudence to sit there and ask me what I have done for you!”

  The man without arms looked at his right sleeve again. His face remained expressionless, though perhaps there was just a tiny glint in the eyes. But the eyes were concealed under the brim of his hat.

  “Then I’ll alter my question,” he said, after a pause. “Why have you done all this for me?”

  “Why?”

  “Yes. Out of love?”

  The countryman frowned. “There’s such a thing as sticking together, ain’t there?” he demanded.

  “Yes, and we’re going to remain sticking together,” replied the man without arms. “But let’s hear your other reason?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean. Ledlow had a reason for double-crossing me twenty years ago—and if you’d been able to find a certain packet of beads when you called at his cottage in the guise of an ex-serviceman and found out what I’d asked you to find out, maybe you’d have double-crossed me—”

  “Oh, so that’s what you think, is it?”

  “If I thought it, you wouldn’t be sitting where you are, talking to me,” answered the man without arms. “You’d be talking to your Maker. I’m just reminding you, since you’ve been reminding me of things, that I’ve been double-crossed once in my life, and the man who tries it a second time won’t die in his bed. You’re interested in that packet of coloured beads, Mr. Kindheart, and that’s why you’re sticking to me. You think I know something about ’em, or at any rate you need my wits to get ’em back. Well, that’s as may be. But if we do get ’em back, you can have t
he lot, because they don’t interest me any more. I’ve just one interest in life. Half of it’s in this sleeve, and the other half’s on my forehead. And we’re going, Mr. Kindheart, to Whitchurch! See?” And he raised his right sleeve as he spoke, and flapped it towards the countryman. “Or am I wrong?” he asked, with a malicious gleam. “And is it still—perhaps?”

  Chapter XXXIII

  Writing in Blood

  The countryman stared at the sleeve uncomfortably. Then he stared at the insensible girl whose fate, as well as his own, appeared to be at the mercy of that flapping portion of garment. Then he stared back at the man without arms again.

  “Are you threatening me?” he asked.

  “Yes,” replied the man without arms. “If you’re not satisfied, no more am I.” His tone hardened. “When you called on Ledlow, what did you do—besides finding out what I sent you there to find out?”

  “Nothing!”

  “You didn’t find that packet of beads?”

  “D’you suppose I’d be here, if I had?”

  “No, I don’t! Thanks for admitting it! We’re getting things straight now, aren’t we?”

  “So much the better!”

  “I agree.”

  “So much the better! Isn’t it what I began this conversation for? I didn’t do anything when I called on Ledlow but find out what we wanted to find out, and then report to you.”

  “You needed my brain?”

  “Look here, you want it both ways, don’t you?” retorted the countryman. “If I work on my own, I’m double-crossing you, and if I don’t I’m soft! Your brain, eh? If you call that thing behind your forehead a brain, what’s it led us into? It was your brain sent me back to Ledlow a second time, wasn’t it, after you’d hatched your insane scheme, and told me to tickle him up by telling him where it was to begin.”

  “Euston—five a.m.,” murmured the man without arms.

  “Yes, Euston, five a.m. And it scared him so much that he went off his nut, and babbled, and the old woman who looked after him got scared herself over his delirium, and wrote to—her!”

  He pointed to the insensible girl.

  “Well, we’ve got her here, haven’t we?” answered the man without arms. “She’s safe not to babble!”

  “Yes—now! And the devil’s own job it’s been!” snapped the countryman. “And who carried the job out? You or me?”

  “You did, because I was on duty elsewhere,” replied the man without arms. “That was your luck. But I’d have enjoyed the job, if I could have done them both. Oh, yes! I’d have enjoyed it! First following her to Euston station, eh, and then on to the hotel—by the way, why did she try the station first? Do you suppose ‘Euston’ was all she had to go upon. ‘Euston—five a.m.,’ and the terror of a delirious old man? Anyway, that’s what she did, while I was waiting outside the window for some one to occupy that empty chair. Might have been placed for the purpose, eh? Well, I can only wish that other man had sat in it, and then—”

  “Yes, then we shouldn’t have had him on the trail!” interposed the countryman. “Exactly! Your pretty plan brought two unwanted people into the business!”

  “Unwanted! I don’t think so. They’ve been useful—as I knew they would be when I told you to tail the girl off, and to keep her on the course. Where the girl went, the man would go. Ruth and Lavine, eh? And if they were kept on the course—the police would be kept off it, eh? Don’t you realise even yet how prettily we’ve diverted the police to a couple of red herrings?”

  “Damned inconvenient red herrings! What did you want to leave that sign at her studio for before going to Bristol?”

  “I thought it might help you, while you stayed behind. Yes, and why did you stay behind so long? Why didn’t you find some way of bringing the girl after me earlier in the day? It might have saved a gipsy woman’s life.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why, she would have made an admirable subject for the second fatality—the second point in the letter I am writing—the letter that will be completed at Whitchurch!” A mad leer flashed into his face for an instant, and was gone the next. “But as I couldn’t lose her at the second, I wanted her with me at the third—”

  “And you’d have had her with you,” growled the countryman, “if you’d waited at Charlton till I turned up with her, as we’d planned. Why didn’t you wait? The car was tucked away near the Carpenter’s Arms—”

  “Yes, and so were plenty of other people,” came the sharp interruption. “That damned aviator raised the hue and cry too soon. You had your instructions to follow, if things went wrong.”

  “And I did follow—”

  “How many hours late?”

  “Blast you, that wasn’t my fault! Do you think things can only go wrong at your end? I had the devil’s time at mine. That girl was dodging all over the place—you scared her properly with that silly sign you slipped through her letter-box—and she wired to Whitchurch. Ah—that interests you! You didn’t know that!”

  “No, I didn’t know that. What did she say in the wire?”

  “How do I know?”

  “Did she get any reply?”

  “She did. And waited for it! Now you know why there was no chance of getting her to Bristol in the morning—unless I used force—which we hadn’t decided on then!” He shot a grim glance at the subject of their conversation. “So I had to use subtlety. Which is more than you’ve ever been capable of!”

  “Let’s hear your subtlety!”

  “That’s right! Sneer in advance! But it did the trick. I said to myself, ‘She’s worried about her grandfather.’ I’d worked it out. She hears that Ledlow has been babbling about Euston and 5 a.m., as though the time and place were sending him daft, and she goes off to find out what’s the trouble. And some one gets killed. And her grandfather knew that some one was going to get killed. What’s the deduction?”

  “That an old man, who can’t leave his bed, has committed the murder?” inquired the man without arms, sarcastically.

  “Murder! You’re free with your terms!”

  “I’m leaving the subtlety to you.”

  “It’s clear you’ve got to! No, that wasn’t the deduction. Her deduction was that Ledlow had something to do with the murder.” The countryman paused abruptly. “Of course,” he went on, slowly, “a girl in her confused state might make all sorts of deductions. Yes—she might even think that a miracle had happened, and that the old man had managed to leave his bed. Still, after all, that’s neither here nor there. The point is—and it’s the point I banked on—she was worried stiff about her grandfather, she was confused, and she couldn’t go for the police.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not, bonehead? If Ledlow had wanted the police, he’d have babbled for the police, and the old woman would have gone for the police! But you know he didn’t dare send for the police—that was your whole position, wasn’t it?”

  The man without arms nodded.

  “Well, then! While he’s babbling about his Euston and his 5 a.m.—”

  “You evidently dinned them into him well,” commented the man without arms.

  “You told me to,” answered the countryman, “and I do everything well. I can even keep to a story when I’m constantly interrupted! While he’s babbling he also babbles about his fear of the police. Or maybe the old woman asks him if he wants the police, and he tells her he doesn’t. So when the old woman writes in desperation to—to the girl in the corner there—she passes on the injunction that the police mustn’t be consulted. That gets it all straight, doesn’t it?”

  The man without arms nodded again.

  “Good. So what I do is this. I slip a note in her letter-box. In the afternoon, when she’s gone back to the studio and given those other fools the slip. The note begs her—in printing letters—to be near the Carpenter’s Arms at Charlton at midnigh
t. It’s written in such a way that it might be from her grandfather or from some one interested in him. It repeats the injunction not to go to the police. It implies that something fatal may happen if she does not go. And so—she goes.”

  “And you go after her?”

  “Yes. And so do some other unwanted people! I tell you, I’ve had a job! If you’d—delayed your plans a little, you could have had her on the spot when you wanted her.”

  “You’ve just implied there were too many other people on the spot for that.”

  “Quite true. You see, I’m not unreasonable. I can see logic. But why didn’t you nip off in the car we’d tucked away for the purpose?”

  The man without arms held up his flapping sleeves.

  “Who’s the intelligent one now?” he asked, cynically.

  “Yes, yes, of course!” muttered the countryman, annoyed with himself. “You had to have somebody to drive you.”

  “Yes. As you weren’t there. And I also had to have somebody to—dispose of—as she wasn’t there!” He flapped a sleeve towards the girl at his side. “The disposal took place in Boston just as you were all leaving Charlton. I seem to have won the race all along the line, don’t I?”

  “Yes, but now I’ve caught you up!” grinned the countryman. “Beat the others on the road, and caught you up.”

  “And I guessed you would, and came to meet you.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And turned you round again.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And, by a little ruse, caught one of the others!”

  “Right beside you!”

  “Yes—right beside me,” nodded the man without arms. “And now you wonder whether we are going to finish the race or not? Whether we’re going to fall off the final lap to Whitchurch—”

  “And make a bee-line straight for the coast,” interposed the countryman, and now his grin vanished, and he looked at the other earnestly. “Yes, that’s what I’m wondering, Pretty-mug! This final lap—we may be caught up in it! Who knows? All the runners aren’t down. And if we are caught up, there’ll be no coast for us! It’ll be—do you know what it’ll be?” He banged his fist suddenly on his knee. “Not a piece of plum-cake for being good boys!”