Murder Gone Mad

by Philip MacDonald

  There was another small silence in the small room.

  It was broken not by anyone within the room, but by the sound of heavy footsteps upon the narrow flagged path of Jeffson’s front garden. The Chief Constable—he did it with the air of a man welcoming any diversion, however small—turned in his chair and peered out of the window, craning his head to see between Mrs Jeffson’s lace curtains.

  ‘Postman,’ he said, in some disgust.

  Pike looked up sharply.’ Postman d’you say, sir,’ he said. He was out of the room in a flash.

  The men in the room heard the opening of the front door and a few muttered words and then the door shutting.

  Pike came back to them slowly. He had in his hand a letter. It says much for what the Butcher had done to Holmdale and these men who were bent upon getting him, that just one glimpse of the envelope in Pike’s fingers brought the Chief Constable out of his chair and round the table in a rush, with Farrow and Davis close behind him craning over his shoulders.

  Pike did not at once show them the letter. Pike said, heavily:

  ‘When you said “postman,” I knew that there was something up.’ He was looking at the Chief Constable. ‘I know the posts here by heart. There isn’t one at this time … but the post-master’s had orders to send any of these up at once …’

  The Chief Constable was glaring at the yellow envelope.

  ‘Open it, man!’ said the Chief Constable. ‘For God’s sake open it!’

  Pike opened it. The sound of his pen-knife hissing through the thick linen paper sounded as loud to the ears of the listeners as a shell-burst.

  Pike, using only the tips of his thumb and forefinger, pulled from the envelope a single sheet of square, yellow paper. He read the note once to himself, slowly and deliberately. And then he read it aloud. He read:

  DEAR POLICE,—In accordance with my promise, I hereby inform you that I intend to do another of my little jobs upon Friday, December 7th—and that, Police, is tomorrow. Or it will be by the time that you read this letter.

  Yours pityingly,

  THE BUTCHER

  P.S.—I don’t know which one of you Police will read this letter, but if it isn’t Superintendent Arnold Pike, of Scotland Yard, I hope that whoever it is will convey to Superintendent Arnold Pike of Scotland Yard, my respects and kindest and warmest regards. I should like to suggest to Inspector Arnold Pike of Scotland Yard that he take some early opportunity of altering his sphere in life. He is not cut out for a detective! But then, who is?

  CHAPTER XII

  I

  THEY were still in Jeffson’s room, which now was shrouded in a blue mist of tobacco smoke. It was an hour since the arrival of the postman with this last outrageous epistle of the Butcher’s. The hour had been spent in discussion, never very amicable, of what steps should be taken to make utterly certain that the Butcher should not be allowed to carry out his threat.

  Pike had taken very little part in the talk, but the Chief Constable—mercifully for Pike, who was thinking his own thoughts—had been disagreeing with his subordinates; more, the subordinates had been disagreeing among themselves. The Chief Constable was in favour of an immediate and Police-enforced order that all persons resident in Holmdale should be forced to remain in their houses from 7 o’clock, or earlier, upon the following night. Davis agreed with him, but went even further. Davis suggested, and kept on reiterating his suggestion, that the confinement to houses should start much earlier, say at 4 o’clock in the afternoon—so far as the residents actually in Holmdale at that time were concerned: in regard to those persons resident in Holmdale, but not having returned to Holmdale from their business or pleasure by that time, he suggested that these should be held up at their points of entrance to Holmdale—whether these were the railway or the roads—interrogated, and escorted in bunches to their homes.

  Farrow, surprisingly, held a very different view. Farrow, Pike was astounded to note, seemed a sudden convert to Pike’s way of thinking for, while he disagreed, he kept sending his eyes towards the yellow splash upon the table which was the Butcher’s letter. Farrow, since the arrival of this last letter, had been a different person. He was now a man, perhaps not of vivid intelligence, but a man of sound if slow commonsense. Farrow, not looking at Pike, stoutly opposed this rigid curfew measure. He said, gazing at the Chief Constable:

  ‘It won’t do, sir. It won’t do at all! We’ve got Heaven knows who among the Specials and the Fire Brigade and even the Regulars. If we make a curfew and shut everybody else up we’re just giving the chap—if he should turn out to be this here Butcher—an extra chance, and a double-plated chance!’

  Davis shook his head. So, a moment later, did Davis’s admiring mentor, the Chief Constable.

  ‘You’re wrong, Farrow,’ said the Chief Constable, ‘quite wrong. If, as you suggest, and as I believe the Superintendent here suggested before you, this Butcher is one of the Specials or some one like that, and we do have the curfew, then, if there was—God forbid!—another crime, we should know, shouldn’t we, where to look for the murderer? And that should be something, eh, Davis?’ The Chief Constable turned round to look, with some pride in his own lucid reasoning, at Inspector Davis.

  Davis nodded emphatically. The Chief Constable glared triumphantly at Superintendent Arnold Pike.

  ‘Eh?’ said the Chief Constable. ‘Eh? What about that? Eh?’

  Pike who had been listening to all this with one half of his alert mind, nodded his head.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Pike, ‘I can’t agree. I agree most strongly with Inspector Farrow …’

  ‘Eh?’ said the Chief Constable, ‘what’s that? What’s that?’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Pike, speaking now very clearly and allowing a pause between each word, ‘agree with you and Inspector Davis. I agree with Inspector Farrow … You are quite wrong, sir, in supposing that, if we had your curfew tomorrow night, and there was a murder, we should necessarily know that we had to look among the patrols etcetera for our murderer. We should know nothing of the sort … This Butcher, sir, is a clever devil. He has proved that not once, but twenty times, and if he’s so clever, well—he might be someone nothing to do with the patrols etcetera and yet get out and do his job, and then laugh at you up his sleeve for watching among the patrols for the murderer.’

  One of the now frequent and very pregnant silences held the little room in its quiet grip.

  Another silence broken at last by the Chief Constable. He said, uncomfortably:

  ‘That’s two for curfew and two against; me and Davis against you and Farrow.’ The Chief Constable’s glance at Pike was compound of deference to the institution which Pike represented and personal hostility to the man himself while his glance at Inspector Farrow was just plainly irate.

  Farrow coloured; coughed to hide his embarrassment; shifted his great weight uneasily from foot to foot.

  Pike was unmoved. He merely nodded his head.

  ‘Quite so,’ he said. ‘Mine and Inspector Farrow’s opinion, against yours and Inspector Davis’s.’ There was nothing in his words to startle the Chief Constable, and it would have taken a masterly analyst to show what there was in his tone to startle the Chief Constable and yet, somehow, the Chief Constable was startled. He stared a moment, grew rather redder in the face even than was his habit, and said at last:

  ‘You seem to be very decided, Superintendent …’

  Pike interrupted, ‘I am, sir … Completely.’

  Another pause … But at silence, as in other things, Pike was more than a match for the Chief Constable. It was the Chief Constable who spoke first.

  ‘Very well, Superintendent,’ he said in a voice thick with mingled emotions. ‘What do you suggest?’

  Pike uncrossed his legs. He deliberated for a moment before replying, but said eventually:

  ‘Just yet, sir, I don’t know. What I will do is to agree with your suggestion made at the beginning of this talk, that the patrols should be given extra instructions a
nd the existing arrangements generally tightened up. I do agree to that. Obviously it’s necessary. But I do like to remind you, sir, that we’ve got a good few hours before us—that is if the Butcher’s going to try and keep to his word—and you can bet he is because that’s the one thing these madmen are proud of. If I’ve got any more suggestions I’ll let you know them by telephone or any other way you like, this evening. This is not a thing one can decide upon after a few minutes talk. We’ve got to think not only of this present threat, but of the whole composite threat of the Butcher’s actual existence … If you see what I mean, sir—while we might be able to take steps to stop this lunatic’s games just temporarily, it is that that wouldn’t do much good. What we have got to do is to make sure that we get him. When we’ve got him, then the people, as a whole, are safe.’

  The Chief Constable shifted uneasily in his chair. The chair creaked loudly beneath his bulk. He had opened his mouth to speak when there came to their ears the sound of brisk tapping footsteps upon the path outside and then a brisker rat-tat-tat on Jeffson’s knocker.

  Jeffson himself went to the door, to return in a moment to face the Chief Constable, spring to attention, and say:

  ‘It’s Miss Finch, sir. Lady editor of the ’Olmdale Clarion. She wants a word with you, sir—or someone in ’thority, very, very special. She wouldn’t take no for an answer, sir.’

  The Chief Constable, after automatically glaring for one moment, seemed to welcome this diversion. The briskness with which he welcomed it seemed to suggest that he was out of his depth in this business and that any floating log which came along within his reach was certainly to be snatched at. He said:

  ‘Show her in! Show her in!’

  Jeffson went back to the door and opened it. He stood upon the inside of the room and made a beckoning movement with his head. There entered to the company, Miss Finch.

  Miss Finch’s appearance was, as usual, severe, but extremely well tailored. She wore a coat and skirt of some dark, subtly-patterned tweed which fitted her pleasant and slimly strong figure to perfection. Under her close-fitting hat of dark felt Miss Finch’s face showed pleasant and composed at first sight; at second sight, however, one saw that beneath the pleasantness and composure there was the tautness of a great strain. Miss Finch nodded to Jeffson as she passed into the room. She bowed, very slightly, to the Chief Constable. She gave to Superintendent Arnold Pike, whom she had met at one of the many meetings of the Holmdale Company which had taken place since his advent, a fleeting but wide and delightful smile. Miss Finch, knowing what was what, managed somehow to address her words ostensibly to the Chief Constable while conveying the impression that Pike’s ears were the ones for which she really spoke.

  She said: ‘I hope you’ll forgive me, Sir Geoffrey, for crashing in like this, but to tell you the truth, a letter has just come to me at the office which I felt I ought to bring up to the Police as soon as possible.’ The gravity and tenseness of Miss Finch’s face relaxed for a moment into a smile which made her seem considerably younger. The Chief Constable rose to his feet. He was gallant. He had a penchant for women just of Miss Finch’s type; pleasant-faced, well-cared for, sophisticated women who knew how to dress well without flummery; witty, self-reliant, perhaps rather ‘managing’ women who looked as if they might, quite easily, manage Sir Geoffrey. And Miss Finch, in particular, had very fine and very lustrous dark-brown eyes.

  The Chief Constable came forward. He took a chair from the hands of Jeffson and set it for Miss Finch. He took from her hands her bag, and the umbrella from which she was never, so folk in Holmdale would tell you, separated. Having put his burdens down upon one of the parlour chairs, the Chief Constable returned to his visitor. He answered her as if her words had only just been spoken. He said:

  ‘Of course I don’t mind Miss Finch, of course … We’re here to do what we can. You’ve frequently helped us in the past and we’re here to help you as far as is in our power …’ He was very pompous.

  Miss Finch, a busy woman, had not much time for this. She cut across the flow. She said briskly:

  ‘Had to come and see you. Because just now a boy from the post-office slipped down to my place—my office, you know—and gave me this.’ Miss Finch produced from a side-pocket in her admirable tweed coat a yellow square envelope covered with backward-sloping and angular and very black writing …

  The Chief Constable’s eyes seemed to be starting out from under his prawn-like eyebrows. For a moment he stared, dumbfounded, at the envelope in Miss Finch’s fingers. Collecting himself, he stretched out a hand to receive it, but he never did receive it. A hand came from somewhere and suavely took it before his fingers had closed upon it. This other hand was Pike’s. And Pike said:

  ‘Excuse me, sir … I’d like to add this to my collection. If I may, sir, I’ll open it.’

  It appeared that he took the Chief Constable’s assent for granted, for before the Chief Constable could speak, he had borne the letter to the table and, treating it as gingerly as he always seemed to treat these epistles, had taken out his pocket-knife and gently slit its flap …

  Inside the envelope was a replica of that letter which still lay, now slightly askew, like a yellow blot upon Jeffson’s table …

  ‘But how on earth,’ said the Chief Constable to Miss Finch a little later, ‘did you get it at this time in the morning. We had ours up here; but then the Superintendent here had arranged for a special delivery …’

  Miss Finch interrupted the Chief Constable. She smiled, and the smile took the edge from any discourtesy which the words might have implied. She said:

  ‘I’m sorry, Sir Geoffrey, but you’re asking me to give away trade secrets. However, seeing that it’s you who ask—and seeing the … the … rather awful gravity of the whole thing, I’ll tell you. I’m afraid that I’ve been guilty—I am trusting you, Sir Geoffery, not to let this go any further—I’m afraid that I’ve been guilty of bribery and corruption. I know one of the post-office staff, and I gave one of the boys a rather handsome tip the other day in return for which he has undertaken to deliver to me, in advance of the usual delivery, any yellow envelope of that … of that … of that sort, which might come.’ Miss Finch here appeared slightly embarrassed, but instantly recovered herself. ‘I do assure you, Sir Geoffery,’ she said earnestly, ‘that the boy hasn’t done anything wrong. I should have reported this in any case and, anyhow, I guessed that the Police would have a special service for … for … these Butcher letters.’

  ‘This letter, Miss Finch,’ said the Chief Constable, tapping upon the desk by the sheet which had just come out of Miss Finch’s envelope, ‘is, if you want to know, an exact replica of one which we received here a full hour ago.’ He smiled brightly upon Miss Finch and added: ‘So that you see you are quite exonerated. I can only say that I thank you very much for your public-spirited action in leaving your work and coming up here personally to deliver this. You could not know that we had already received our version.’ The Chief Constable, duty for once holding its own against the opportunity for gallantry, made it clear by tone and attitude that, however grateful he was to Miss Finch, he now expected her to depart.

  Miss Finch, however, seemed of a different mind. She said, blankly unreceptive both to attitude and tone:

  ‘I was wondering, Sir Geoffery, whether I could have a little consultation with you about whether this letter … this terrible letter … could be used by my paper … I quite see that in some circumstances it might be dangerous or against the public welfare, as we say, to see it, but if in any way it would help the Police investigation if I did give it prominent publicity—why, then, I should be only too glad to do so.’ Here Miss Finch paused a moment and laughed, a friendly little laugh, at the Chief Constable which made him momentarily forget that duty should go before beauty.

  The Chief Constable was about to answer. What he was about to answer he may himself have known, but nobody else will ever know for he was not allowed to answer. The courteous voice of
Superintendent Pike cut across the tête-à-tête. It said:

  ‘May I suggest, sir, that we are not yet sufficiently advanced in our plans to know whether it would help us to give publicity to this letter or not? May I suggest that in the circumstances the best thing we can do, both from our own point of view and this lady’s, is to promise to let her know within a couple of hours whether she is to use this or not?’

  The Chief Constable started, stared for a moment. He said, after that moment: ‘Yes—er—Yes … Yes … Yes … Quite.’ He turned to his visitor. ‘I think, Miss Finch,’ he said, ‘that the Superintendent here is right. We’re just having an er—er—a meeting. We’ve got to take some further steps. Until we’ve decided what they should be, we’d better leave your knowledge in abeyance if you don’t mind.’

  Miss Finch rose to her feet. She was brisk and business-like, She took from the Chief Constable, as he brought them with gallantly ready hands, her bag and her little umbrella. Miss Finch said brightly, that she quite understood … At the doorway, she turned round and added, that she hoped that they would not forget to ‘give the Clarion a call.’ They must not forget that while the Press, in a horrible business like this, would do anything within reason, or perhaps beyond reasonable bounds, to help the Police, the Press must nevertheless live, and that therefore the Press expected a tit-for-tat. In other words, if the Police could not eventually see their way to letting her publish this latest effusion of the Butcher’s, would the Police give her something else. She was very keen to get a special edition out tomorrow. It was not so much that the special editions were desired by the Clarion, to whom they gave a vast deal of extra work, as that the public were so eager to have first-hand and locally-originated news …