Female of the Species

by Sapper

  “There, ladies and gentlemen, you have the slaughter stone on which the victim was sacrificed as the first rays of the sun, rising over the Friar’s Heel, touched his body. Inside you perceive the altar stone…”

  The guide droned on, but I paid scant attention. My thoughts were concerned with the present, and not with the past. Was Drummond right in his surmise, was this place – the scene of so much death in the dawn of history – to be the setting for murder as merciless as anything of old? What he had said was correct in one respect certainly; if Darrell, or any of them, were done to death it would be, to the world at large, a crime without motive. And the instant those three were disposed of, the end would come for Mrs Drummond.

  It had been sound generalship on his part, leaving them in London. But the crux of the whole matter was whether, if there really was a clue to be obtained, we should get it. True, that we saved them the risk of being murdered, but did we not also prevent any possibility of getting information? Granted that our disguises held, what reason was there for us being told anything? To get a short cut to our goal, as Drummond hoped, presupposed our obtaining the necessary clue. And as far as I could see at the moment, the only connecting link we possessed was the man with the wounded hand.

  To the other who, Toby Sinclair said, was like this dead man Lakington, I attached no importance whatever. Chance likenesses are frequent, and the mere fact that he bore a striking resemblance to a dead criminal was no proof that he was a criminal himself. No, the man with the damaged finger was our only link, and I began to wonder if we hadn’t been foolish in losing sight of him.

  I glanced round: Toby Sinclair had wandered off and joined another group. And it suddenly occurred to me that it could do no harm to make a closer inspection of the Friar’s Heel. It was a perfectly ordinary and normal thing to do, and would not cause any suspicion, even if our opponents had spies in the crowd. And there was always the bare possibility of finding a clue.

  I wandered over to it, to find a big man in rough seafaring clothes staring at it curiously.

  “Rum old pile this, guv’nor, ain’t it? I’ve seen the same sort of thing at Stornoway up in Lewis. Though I reckons the stones there ain’t as big. This Friar’s Heel as they call it is a big ’un all right.”

  “You’ve been to the Hebrides,” I said casually.

  “Been there! Lor’ bless you, there’s not many parts of this little old globe that I ain’t been to. And with it all I guess there are as curious things and as beautiful things in England as anywhere else. Only people don’t know it, or else they’re too lazy to go and look.”

  I looked at him curiously, out of the corner of my eye. Could this be another clue? If it was it meant we had been spotted. And then I took a pull at myself: I was beginning to suspect everybody and everything.

  “Stopping in these parts?” he went on.

  “For a few days,” I said.

  “Funny sort of country,” he remarked. “Good for the soldiers, I suppose, but it’s a bit too bare for me. I like it with a few more woods and trees. Still – it’s fine, especially at night. I reckon that these pebbles would look grand with the moonlight shining on them.”

  Once again I stared at him thoughtfully.

  “Yes, one could imagine all sorts of terrible things happening here at night,” I said quietly. “Ghosts of old Britons who had been sacrificed: and violent deaths, and – murder.”

  He laughed.

  “You ain’t half got an imagination, guv’nor, have you? But I take it you’re one of the town-bred lot – meaning no offence. Put you down in the country at night, and you begin to see things that ain’t there – and hear things that ain’t real. Murder! Who’s going to murder anyone here?”

  He laughed again.

  “I don’t suppose anyone ever comes to a place like this at night,” he went on. “And yet it’s a rum thing. I was bicycling along that road late last night – been seeing some friends of mine – and it seemed to me as if there was something moving about the place. Round this very stone. Of course it was dark, and I may have been mistaken, but there ain’t generally much wrong with my sight.”

  Last night, I reflected. Had the clue been guessed at once, Darrell and the other two could have been at the Friar’s Heel by then. Had there been someone here in readiness? To give them a further clue, or to deal with them – otherwise.

  “You didn’t investigate?” I asked casually. “See if you were right?”

  “Not me, guv’nor. None o’ my business. And one of Ben Harker’s rules in life has always been to mind his own business.”

  He produced a well-used old briar from his pocket, and proceeded to fill it from a weather-beaten leather pouch.

  “Have a fill?” he said. “Ship’s tobacco; the best in the world.”

  “A bit strong for me, I’m afraid, Mr Harker,” I thanked him. “We miserable city clerks are hardly used to that sort of smoke.”

  “You prefer them damned fags, I suppose,” he grunted. “Ah! well, everyone to his own taste. Personally…”

  He paused, and I glanced at him. His fingers had ceased filling his pipe, and he was standing absolutely motionless staring over my shoulder. Only for the briefest fraction of time did it last, and then he continued his interrupted sentence.

  “Personally, I can’t ever get any taste out of a cigarette.”

  As I say the pause was only for a fraction of a second – a pause which I might quite easily have missed, had I not happened to have been watching his hands. But I hadn’t missed it, and I knew that he had seen somebody or something behind me that had caused it.

  “A match at any rate, I can offer you,” I said, and as I spoke I turned round casually. Coming slowly towards us was the thin-lipped man who resembled Lakington.

  “Thanks,” he answered, lighting his pipe in the unmistakable method of a man used to the wind. Then he handed me back the box.

  “Well, good day to you,” he said. “Maybe if you’re staying in these parts we shall meet again.”

  He strolled off with the slight roll of the seaman, and I lit a cigarette. Certainly nothing he had done or said connected him in the slightest degree with the game, and yet I wasn’t quite sure. Why that sudden pause in the middle of a sentence? And then it struck me that there was nothing to connect the man who had caused it with the game either, except a resemblance to a dead criminal.

  I sat down on the ground, and proceeded to study the huge stone, acutely conscious that the thin-lipped man was standing just behind me.

  “You are interested in this sort of thing?” he remarked politely.

  “As much as a bank clerk who knows nothing about it can be,” I answered.

  “It has always been a hobby of mine,” he said. “The past is so infinitely more interesting than the present. One admits of imagination; the other is bare and brutal fact. These motorcars; this crowd of terrible people peering in their asinine way at the scene of age-old mysteries. Doing the place at high pressure, instead of steeping themselves in the romance of it.”

  He talked on, and there was no denying that he could talk. His voice was pleasant and well modulated, and after a while I began to listen entranced. Evidently a widely travelled and well-read man, with the rare gift of imparting information, without becoming a bore. And after a while I began to keep up my end of the conversation.

  It was when he happened to mention the Zimbabwe Ruins in Mashonaland, ruins that I had broken my journey at Fort Victoria in order to see; ruins, as many believe, of a vanished civilisation, which had fascinated me at the time, that I became really interested.

  He, too, knew them, and we started an argument. I maintained that they were an ancient legacy from some civilised people dating back, perhaps, to before the days of Solomon: he inclined to the theory that they were only the work of local natives, and at most mediaeval.

  “Evidently,” he said at length, “you have studied the matter more closely than I have. Did you spend long there?”

 
“I was actually in South Africa for about six months,” I told him. “And I used to collect opinions from those qualified to express them.”

  “A fascinating country. Though perhaps for any big scheme of emigration which would cover all classes of our countrymen, Australia is more suitable.”

  “I’ve never been there,” I said. “As a matter of fact I’m thinking of going next year. And to New Zealand.”

  “By the way,” he said affably, after we had chatted for another ten minutes or so, “if you are staying in this neighbourhood you might care to have a look at my collection of curios. Though I say it myself I think I may say there are few finer in the country. And a man of taste like yourself would appreciate them.”

  “It is very good of you,” I remarked, “and I should greatly like to see them.”

  He had risen, and I stood up also.

  “Where is your house?”

  He glanced at his watch thoughtfully.

  “I have my car here,” he said, “and if you can spare an hour I could run you over and show them to you. Then my car can take you back to your hotel.”

  “There is only one small difficulty,” I said. “I came over from Amesbury with a gentleman I happened to meet at lunch. I see him over there – Professor Stanton. An enthusiast on butterflies.”

  “Professor Stanton,” he cried. “Not the Professor Stanton.”

  “I really don’t know,” I murmured. “I met him quite by chance at lunch today.”

  “But,” he exclaimed excitedly, “if it’s Professor John Stanton his reputation is world-wide.”

  I suppressed a slight smile; whatever Toby Sinclair’s reputation might be in certain purlieus of London, it could hardly be described as world-wide.

  “He’s coming to join us,” I remarked, “and you can ask him.”

  “But it is him,” he cried, as Toby approached. “What stupendous luck. My dear Professor,” he advanced with outstretched hand, “you remember me. What a fool I was not to recognise you in Amesbury when I passed you.”

  Sinclair stared at him blankly.

  “I fear you have the advantage of me, sir,” he remarked.

  The other waved a deprecating hand.

  “Ah! but, of course, you would not recall me. I am merely one of the thousands who have sat at your feet. It was presumption on my part to imagine that my face would be familiar to you. But how entranced I was at that lecture you gave on the habits of Pieris rapae.”

  “You must be making some mistake, sir,” said Toby coldly. “I am not the gentleman you think.”

  “Modesty, Professor – modesty. Tell me have you discovered a specimen of it yet? You told us, if you remember, that it was to be your life work.”

  “Though you are making a mistake, sir, as to my identity – yet I can well imagine that it would have been the life work of the man I resemble. The rarest of all the species, perhaps. But I have seen today a marvellous specimen of the Opsiphianes syme.”

  “Stupendous,” said the other admiringly. “What eyesight: what wonderful eyesight. Well, I mustn’t detain a public character. Good day, sir, good day. And if you care to join your friend in a little visit he has promised to make to my humble abode, I shall be delighted to show you my amateur collection.”

  He bowed courteously and walked off, leaving Sinclair and me staring at one another.

  “I say, old boy,” said Sinclair, “I hope this is all right. I wonder who the hell Professor Stanton really is. Hugh’s made a bit of a bloomer there. He oughtn’t to have given me the name of a pukka character. Anyway, I think I pulled the jargon on him all right. I must consult my list of names again.”

  And it was as he was pulling it out of his pocket that a strange noise close by drew our attention. It appeared to come from a little man of astonishing aspect, whose false teeth were clicking together in his excitement. He also seemed to be trying to speak. We waited: by this time I was prepared for anything.

  “Are you acting for the films?” he spluttered at length. “Or are you being more stupid than you look for some purpose?”

  “Explain yourself, little man,” said Toby with interest.

  “Lying, sir – lying offensively on a subject which is sacred to some of us.” His teeth nearly fell out, but he pushed them back with the care of long practice. “Using words, sir, which betray you as an impostor. How, sir, did you see a specimen of Opsiphanes syme?”

  “With the jolly old peepers, laddie,” said Toby soothingly.

  “Bah!” cried the little man. “Are you so profoundly ignorant of the subject you desecrate that you do not know that only in the swamps of Brazil is that beautiful butterfly found?”

  “No wonder he said my eyesight was good,” said Toby thoughtfully.

  “And further, sir – do you see that?”

  He pointed a shaking finger at two Cabbage Whites chasing one another near-by.

  “The rarest of all the species, you called them. Pieris rapae, sir. Bah! you make me sick. You should be prosecuted, sir; you should be prosecuted.”

  “Look here, you’ll swallow your teeth in a minute,” said Toby, but the astounding little creature had already departed, waving his fists in the air.

  “Takes all sorts to make a world, gents,” came a laughing voice from behind us. “But you do certainly seem to have said the wrong thing.”

  We swung round: the man who looked like a sailor was standing there.

  “Don’t you know anything about butterflies – or is he talking through his hat?”

  He gave Toby a penetrating stare.

  “Dangerous thing, sir, pretending to know more than you do. Or be what you ain’t.”

  He strolled away, and once again we looked at one another.

  “He’s one of ’em,” I said. “For a certainty. That’s torn it.”

  “Hell,” he remarked. “And again, hell. What about Lakington the second? Is he one, too?”

  Chapter 12

  In which I write my mind to Drummond

  Toby Sinclair was thoroughly despondent.

  “I looked up a bunch of Latin names in an Encyclopaedia,” he said morosely. “How the dickens was I to know that the damned thing only lived in Brazil?”

  We were sitting in his room at the hotel.

  “And the devil of it is, Dixon,” he went on, “that even if Lakington is not one of them we’ve still given the show away to that sailor bloke. You could see his suspicions sticking out a yard.”

  “Hold hard a moment,” I said. “You say we’ve given it away.”

  “Well then – I have, if you like that better,” he said sulkily.

  “Don’t get huffy, old man,” I laughed. “I’m not trying to pretend that I should have done any better than you if I’d been the Professor. But as luck would have it I was only a clerk.”

  “What are you driving at?” He looked at me curiously.

  “Simply this. Up to date I have not given myself away – either to the sailor or to the man you call Lakington. I think I may say that I have been the bank clerk on holiday to the life.”

  “Yes – but they know you know me,” he objected.

  “They know – and if they choose to take the trouble to ask it will be corroborated – that you and I met casually in the coffee-room at lunch today. If you are an impostor, which unfortunately they must know by now – there is still no reason whatever why I should have known it earlier.”

  “But you know it now as well as they do.”

  “Now – yes,” I agreed. “But the fact that I went to Stonehenge with you throws no suspicion on me. I didn’t know it then.”

  “I’m hanged if I get you,” he said.

  “You’ve got to clear out,” I remarked. “Vamoose. Hop it. Disappear from this place for good.”

  “I’m blowed if I do,” he said.

  “My dear fellow – you must. If we’re to do any good, and help Drummond in any way, it’s impossible that you should stay on. They know you’re an impostor; they know I know you�
�re an impostor. Well, how can we both stop on here? Am I to cut you dead? Or am I to continue talking to you realising that you are an impostor? Don’t you see that it’s sufficient to bring suspicion on me at once? Besides – I’m going to speak quite frankly. Your value to the side at the moment is nil. In fact, old man, you’re a positive source of weakness.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” he agreed reluctantly. “Well – what do you suggest?”

  “That you tell them downstairs that you’ve changed your mind and will not require your room. Then you hop it, and I’m sorry to say, as far as I can see you fade out of the picture. I shall stay on, and without being blatant about it, I shall drop an occasional remark about your extraordinary idea of a holiday. The strange sort of kink that makes a man pretend to be what he isn’t – that line of gup. Form of conceit – you know. I can easily cough it up. And by doing that I shall remove any small half-formed suspicion they may have about me. I am just an ordinary bank clerk taken in by you, as anyone else might have been.”

  He grunted and rose to his feet.

  “You’re right. I’ll go. Drop a note to Hugh explaining things – and tell him I’m eating mud.”

  And then he suddenly paused.

  “But, good Lord! Dixon – it’s no good. The damage is done. If they’ve got a line on me they’ll know Hugh and you and I aren’t dead.”

  “They haven’t got a line on you as yourself,” I said. “You might be somebody else rigged out like that – Algy Longworth for instance. Clear out and clear out quick. For unless you do, if I’m not greatly mistaken you’ll be for it. They will think you’re just another member of Drummond’s bunch, and as such require to be exterminated. I’m going down now into the bar; if I happen to see you before you go I shall be pretty terse in my remarks.”

  “What sickening luck,” he muttered. “Damn that blinking butterfly.”

  “It’s bad luck,” I said, “but I’m sure it’s the only thing to do. Look out into the passage and see if there’s anyone about. Then I’ll make a bolt for it.”