Murder Gone Mad

by Philip MacDonald

  They rose and went out into the fog, two heavy men who yet moved with a silence oddly at variance with their action.

  Pike was left staring at Miss Marable’s fire. Presently, he dropped into a chair, put his elbows on his knees and chin into his cupped hands …

  III

  Upon the next day Pike did go to London. In Holmdale, Curtis and Blaine, carrying on with stolid faces their entirely unnecessary and most arduous duties, awaited him.

  They did not see him until half-past six upon that evening which was the evening of Tuesday, the 17th December. And when they did see him it was to receive news which flabbergasted them.

  ‘Leaving, sir?’ said Blaine, ‘without laying a finger on that …’

  Pike nodded. ‘We’re going, tomorrow morning. I’ll see the Chief Constable tonight. I’ll also see you two again tonight.’

  Curtis and Blaine looked at him. They were used to moods and varying expressions. They had worked with him now for many years. Until now they had thought that they knew him; but now they found that they did not know him. They could read nothing from the long, blank face which he turned to them.

  ‘Why can’t we? …’ began Blaine, forgetting position in agitation.

  ‘Make an arrest!’ said Pike quickly. ‘Is that what you were going to say?’

  Blaine nodded, colouring.

  ‘Because,’ said Pike grimly, ‘you poor dub, there’s nothing to make the arrest on! We may know—we may know until we’re black in the face as a lot of black sheep—we do know, but what have we got? We’ve searched the house, haven’t we? And all the belongings. And we found nothing. Nothing! And then some more nothing. We’ve got no finger-prints, no connecting link at all except in our own mental knowledge … How can we make an arrest? We’d be the laughing stock of the country in about five minutes. They were comic enough over Spring and that lot … Of course we can’t make an arrest. Don’t be silly!’

  Blaine hung his head like a chidden schoolboy. He muttered at the ground:

  ‘No, sir, of course not. I see it.’

  ‘Well, cut off now,’ said Pike. ‘See you again.’

  They cut off.

  IV

  ‘Well,’ said the Chief Constable, ‘in a way I’m very sorry. In a way I can see what he means.’ He tapped the official letter at the foot of which Pike, pretending not to look, could see Lucas’s signature. ‘I mean I can see Scotland Yard’s point of view. And I must say, Superintendent, that after your valuable advice … er … er …’ The Chief Constable got into difficulties here and finished up with a weak ‘and all that. I do feel that my own men can carry on. So perhaps it’s all for the best.’

  The Chief Constable rose, extending a podgy hand which trembled. Pike shook it without warmth. He also shook hands, displaying less warmth still, with Davis. He turned and clasped the ham-like fist of Inspector Farrow and gave this a hearty enough shake. He nodded to Jeffson; made a curious little ducking nod to the Chief Constable and was gone.

  Outside there waited the blue police Crossley. In it were Curtis and Blaine. Pike took the wheel, and so the only known members of Scotland Yard to have visited Holmdale, left Holmdale.

  They circled the town and many saw them go.

  That was at noon on Wednesday, the 18th December. By one o’clock all Holmdale knew of their going. There were mutters in Holmdale. There were outcries in Holmdale against the leaving; and also satisfaction in Holmdale on account of the leaving. Holmdale, as always since the beginning of its curse, was divided into many camps.

  In the Police Station, the Chief Constable, Farrow at one shoulder and Davis at the other, bent over the letter signed by Egbert Lucas. In the corner Jeffson stood erect, awaiting instructions. The Chief Constable mouthed over to himself the letter’s last paragraph:

  … The Commissioner, therefore, desires me to state that he feels it unnecessary that Superintendent Pike and his subordinates should remain any longer in Holmdale. While the Commissioner is willing and anxious to offer all the help he can in the most tragic and unusual circumstances, he is unable, owing to the scarcity of officers and men, to allow Superintendent Pike and his subordinates to remain with you indefinitely. Should any further developments or new turns to the situation arise, he will, of course, be only too glad to give you the benefit of any assistance which the Department might be able to provide. In the meanwhile, he hopes that you will agree to the withdrawal of his men.

  I am, sir,

  Your obedient servant,

  EGBERT LUCAS

  ‘And that,’ said the Chief Constable pettishly, ‘is that! I can’t say I think much of our Scotland Yard detectives. What’ve they done that we couldn’t have done? Eh? Eh? …’

  Farrow grunted. But Davis said:

  ‘Nothing, sir, and not near as much, if you were to ask me. And I reckon we’ve got this Butcher under and I reckon that it’s our doing.’

  The Chief Constable shook his head, but a pleased smile creased his mouth. ‘I don’t know about got him under,’ said the Chief Constable. ‘Certainly he didn’t carry out the threat in his last letter and hasn’t.’

  ‘Nor,’ said Davis confidently, ‘he never will.’

  Farrow grunted.

  CHAPTER XIX

  I

  THERE was fog again upon the Wednesday night and the Thursday night. But on Friday, in the afternoon, the wind changed and there started slashing, stinging north-easterly rain and hail. The hailstones rattled on Holmdale’s little red roofs and the gutters of Holmdale ran turgid black-brown water.

  It is queer how soon the human animal will accustom itself to changed circumstances. It had only required the failure of the last Butcher letter and the two days interval to make Holmdale, as a whole, slightly contemptuous of the Chief Constable’s ‘voluntary curfew’. The majority of Holmdale’s citizens still roughly adhered to the curfew’s boundaries—but only roughly; and there were many of the more hardy spirits in Holmdale who openly ignored it. The theatre and cinema were shut, but the Wooden Shack still was open. There were cinemas in Batley and dance halls in St. Raglands. And so once more there was life in the streets of Holmdale during night time, although still people went abroad in bunches and not singly. But the small stir did not last upon this Friday evening after a quarter to eleven. And yet upon this Friday evening there was abroad in Holmdale, between eleven-thirty and twelve, a solitary, unauthorised traveller.

  A small person this, dressed in a short and dirty frock of knitted wool which exposed lanky legs from ankle to mid-thigh. Over the frock, there was a short coat of threadbare black stuff, too big in the shoulders, and moth-eaten about its one-time astrakan collar and cuffs. There were thin and almost soleless shoes upon the little feet. She wore no hat and her hair, which was straight and sparse-seeming and parted in the middle and drawn back over her ears into two plaits with bedraggled tape bows at their ends, was saturated with the rain.

  The water streamed down her face and the occasional hailstones stung her. She was in Collingwood Road, slinking along like some furtive animal in the shadow of the hedge. Footsteps came towards her; heavy, martial footsteps of one of the Chief Constable’s recently doubled patrols. She slunk into the hedge way and crouched behind the gate. She shivered as the rain came down upon her. The footsteps went by, slow and ponderous and stately. The little figure crept out again from the gateway and on to the pavement. Once more she slunk furtively along, casting terrified, wide-eyed glances this way and that …

  II

  There was light in the offices of the Holmdale Clarion and also a light above, in the hall of the flat belonging to the Holmdale Clarion’s editor.

  Miss Finch had come downstairs, from flat to office. Miss Finch was writing a letter. The sheet upon which she was writing lay square upon her blotter. It was covered with writing. Miss Finch, suddenly discovering the need for more paper, rose and went to the corner of the room in which there stood, in their magnificent, specially-presented, entirely free, book-case, the forty-
seven volumes of the American Cyclopcedia. She took out the volume marked Par–Pork; opened it; laid it flat upon the top of the book-case table and ran her finger and thumb lightly over its edges until she found what she sought—some twenty-four pages whose outer edges adhered one to the other. Into the centre of the pocket made by these pages, Miss Finch slid her left hand and brought it away bearing another sheet of notepaper which she sought. There was a glove upon her left hand.

  She went back to the desk. She dipped a strangely nibbed pen into a small ink-pot and settled herself once more to her task. She wrote:

  … and, therefore, I really do feel …

  But she got no further. Suddenly she raised her head. Her large and beautiful eyes narrowed to slits as she listened. Her neatly coiffed head was cocked to one side like some small bird’s. Miss Finch with a smooth, hasty movement hid the two sheets of her letter beneath the top sheet of her blotter. With another movement nearly as smooth and even more silent, the ink bottle went into the left-hand corner drawer of her desk. A key locked this drawer and was slipped into one of the pockets of Miss Finch’s admirably cut tweed coat.

  Yes … She had been right … There it came again, a faint somehow timid-seeming rapping upon the office door knocker. Miss Finch rose. She went through the open glass door marked ‘Editor’ and into the passage. While she walked many expressions passed over her face, but when she opened the door there was upon it that smile which did so much towards enhancing her charm. She threw open the door and stood upon its threshold looking out into the wild darkness of driving, beating rain and keen north-easterly wind. It was some time before Miss Finch discovered what it was that had knocked and then, shifting her glance downwards, she saw at her feet a small, huddled, limpness half-sitting, half-lying upon the bottom of the three steps which led from the door down to the pavement.

  Miss Finch, reaching out a hand, snapped on the passage light. Its effulgence bathed the steps …

  ‘Well, my little dear,’ said Miss Finch, ‘what’s the matter?’

  She did not go down the steps, but she bent a little as she stood on the top step. She peered downwards. From the limp, woebegone little bundle a small head was raised; a small head behind which there stuck out, ridiculously, two little plaits of hair tied tightly at their ends with dirty tape. The face which looked up at Miss Finch was a white oval in the yellow light. Out from it there stared huge dark eyes, black-rimmed with fatigue and terror.

  ‘I’m afryde!’ said a thin and trembling little voice. ‘Got lorst … and up there … and up there …’—a thin arm came out and made slight gestures behind its back—‘up there, there was a man. ’E chysed me … I’m afryde. Let me come in, Lydy!’

  ‘You poor little dear,’ said Miss Finch slowly. ‘Yes, come in. Come in.’ She stood on one side. The small figure heaved painfully to its feet and made gasping way up the steps and over the threshold.

  ‘Koo!’ said the thin voice. ‘’Tain’t ’alf luvly an’ warm in ’ere’—thin fingers came out and touched Miss Finch suddenly and fiercely by the arm—‘Lydy, that man ’e chysed me. ’E can’t get in ’ere after me, can ’e?’

  Miss Finch’s hand came slowly out and patted the thin, sodden shoulder.

  ‘Of course he can’t, my dear. Of course he can’t. Poor little thing, you’re drenched through and through. Come in. Come in.’

  Miss Finch, still with hand holding and caressing the thin shoulder whose bones she could feel beneath the shabby and drenched cloth, propelled her visitor gently towards the open door of the editorial office. ‘There’s a fire in here,’ said Miss Finch. ‘You can get warm, dear, and dry your wet clothes.’

  The waif, catching sight through the open door of the red glow of a large gas fire, dashed forward and crouched upon the hearth, shivering now so that her teeth chattered in her small head.

  Miss Finch followed her more slowly. Miss Finch stood looking down at her visitor. There was a bright sheen, like unshed tears, over Miss Finch’s fine eyes.

  ‘Koo!’ said the visitor. ‘’Tain’t ’arf lovely and warm in ’ere! ’Tain’t ’alf bleedin’ cold ahtside.’

  ‘My dear!’ Miss Finch was shocked. ‘My dear!’

  ‘Well ’tis,’ said the visitor. ‘Perishin’ cold and wet. I sy, Lydy’—her voice had taken on now the professional whine—‘cahn’t I tyke me cowt orf?’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ said Miss Finch with something like a break in her voice. She knelt down beside the woebegone figure and with gentle hands took off the sodden garment. She stood back, the coat held unheeded between her hands while it dropped a little pool of black-stained water on to the grey carpet. Her visitor crouched over the fire like a tragic monkey, holding out long, slim-fingered hands to the glow.

  Still holding the coat, Miss Finch spoke again. She seemed to have some difficulty with her voice. It was not the voice with which she had spoken when she had opened the outer door. It was a thicker voice, choked a little as if the words which she spoke were too big for her mouth. She said, getting these words out with slow difficulty:

  ‘But what are you doing, dear? Out alone at this time of night! And what is your age … How old are you, dear?’

  ‘Firteen.’

  The waif looked with a soft, frightened movement over her shoulder and up at Miss Finch. Her great eyes made Miss Finch’s eyes flinch from them. She put up her hand with a quick movement of her whole body as if to guard herself from a blow.

  ‘I ain’t done nuffink wrong. I got lorst I told yer!’

  ‘My dear,’ said Miss Finch and moved forward a little. The wet coat, now, was brushing against her legs, but she didn’t seem to notice it. ‘Of course you’ve done nothing wrong.’ She seemed suddenly to become aware of the wet coat. She hung it, with care, upon the back of an office chair and turned again to walk to the fireplace and stood, elbows leaning upon the mantel-piece, looking down at her guest.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Miss Finch, still finding difficulty with her words, ‘you poor little thing. How did you come to get lost? How is it that you, a child of thirteen, are wandering about like this? You don’t live here, do you?’

  ‘Don’t live anywheres,’ said the guest. ‘Farver’s got a caravan and we go rahnd to fairs and when we stopped to ’ave a bit o’ dinner this mornin’ I goes awye for a walk and I’se very tired and I finds a hystack. I lies dahn and goes to sleep and when I wakes up Dad and Mum and the bleedin’ caravan and Spot—he’s my dog—well the ’ole bleedin’ lot’s gorn, missus. Ever since I’ve been walkin’ abaht on me trotters to see if I could find ’em, but they’re gorn. Then it comes over reel dark and I gets afryde like and lorst same as I tell ye. And then I sees this ’ere plyce and I means to knock at some door and arst for a doss or p’raps a bit o’ bread to put in me belly. And then that gryte man ’e chyses me—Kor, Jesus! ’e didn’t ’arf frighten me …’

  ‘My poor little girl,’ said Miss Finch. ‘So you’re only thirteen and your Daddy has a caravan and he’s gone away with the caravan and you don’t know where you are and your Daddy doesn’t know where you are?’

  ‘That’s right, missus, that’s right!’ She sniffed; passed her hand across her eyes. ‘That’s right. I dunno where I am and Dad, ’e doesn’t know where I am—not that ’e’d care so bleedin’ much if ’e never saw me agyne.’

  ‘You mustn’t say that,’ said Miss Finch in a new and somehow crisper voice. ‘You mustn’t say that!’ She smiled down at her visitor who still seemed to cower away from her. Miss Finch began to bustle.

  ‘I know what you’d like,’ she said. ‘You would like a nice hot cup of cocoa with lots of nice milk and sugar in it and some bread and butter? Now wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Not ’arf,’ said the visitor, ‘I wouldn’t! You jest show ’em to me, missus.’

  Miss Finch bustled out. ‘I will. I will.’ Her voice came back through the open door.

  And then the sound of her feet running up the carpeted stairs to her flat above.

 
; The visitor cast a hunted glance about her; a fearful glance. She looked at the door. She looked at the gaily curtained windows. She looked round at the stern though comfortable furniture. She stood in the centre of the room by Miss Finch’s table and gazed up at the great skylight window in the roof. Nervously she played first with an ink-pot, then with a pencil and lastly with Miss Finch’s ebony ruler with the ivory tips.

  Upstairs, Miss Finch, her breath so laboured that her breasts seemed at times to be going to burst the silk blouse which covered them, stood before the bentwood hatstand in the passage of her little flat …

  Lost … doesn’t know where she is … Father doesn’t know where she is … just a small bit of human flotsam … Miss Finch’s hand went to her heart. Miss Finch’s face was very pale. Her eyes looked, against their surrounding whiteness, almost as big as the great orbs of her visitor. Now her breath came hissing out between her clenched, white, admirable teeth …

  Lost … Doesn’t know where she is … Father doesn’t know where she is … Just a small bit of human flotsam …

  Miss Finch went, half-pace by half-pace, towards the bent-wood stand. Her hand, crooked like a claw, came out until it grasped the handle of her dumpy umbrella …

  Miss Finch stood upon the topmost of her steps and with her left hand, silently removed her shoes. Miss Finch, levering herself to her feet with a thrust of the umbrella, began slowly and very, very quietly to descend the stairs.

  Lost … Doesn’t know where she is … Father doesn’t know where she is … Just a small bit of human flotsam …

  Miss Finch reached the door of the Editor’s room. She halted just before she was within the sight of anyone inside that room. She seemed to have difficulty with her breath. She commanded herself. She moved the umbrella from the right hand to the left, her right hand hovering over the umbrella’s handle. She took two steps forward upon her stockinged feet. Her face now was dead white; her eyes had a glassy, polished look like sea-washed pebbles. Her mouth worked and a thin line of white foam defined the junction of her close-clenched lips.