Killer in the Shade

by Piers Marlowe

  That was all he had time to take in, but his impression was of a comfortable bedroom where a man could settle to a good night’s rest, and then Drury said, ‘Ah, Doctor, there you are. I’ve removed the knife. My impression is that whoever stabbed him knew something of anatomy. The blade reached the heart. Would you confirm that, please, and consider again when it is likely he died?’

  ‘I’ll have to get some of the clothes off him,’ Cadman said.

  ‘Of course. Bill, give me a hand with him. He wasn’t a lightweight, whoever he was.’

  Fifteen minutes later the detectives and the doctor were in agreement about the time of death. It had very likely occurred as the street lights came on. There was also agreement about the ability of the killer, for his knife had reached the heart of the man stabbed in the back.

  ‘Take a look at it, Doctor,’ Drury said, holding in a towel he had probably taken from the bathroom the bloodstained weapon that had been plunged in the unknown’s body. He put it on the floor and added, ‘Now come downstairs and take a look.’

  Cadman had closed his black case. He picked it up, nodded to Bill Hazard, and followed Drury out of the room and down the stairs and into another room opening off the hall. The door was opposite the door of the room where he had sat earlier. When he drew up inside the room he stood looking to where Drury was frowning at a finely carved cabinet of some well-polished dark wood with a plate-glass top. Under the glass, set out on a ground of blue velvet, was a collection of nearly a dozen knives and daggers, ranging from thin-bladed stilettos to a large curved kris. There was one space unfilled. It was in the center of the collection.

  ‘Would you say that is where the weapon came from, Doctor?’ Drury asked without turning his head to look at the man he addressed.

  ‘It would seem so.’

  ‘Yet the cabinet’s locked.’

  Cadman said nothing. Drury looked at him, and the doctor again experienced that feeling of not being trusted by the detective.

  ‘You saw no one leave, did you?’ Drury asked.

  ‘No one.’

  ‘Nor anyone hurrying along the road as you turned the corner?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Strange,’ said Drury. ‘Damned strange. Wouldn’t you agree, Doctor?’

  ‘I’m not a detective,’ Cadman said, and disliked the sound of the defensive note in his own voice.

  Drury gave him that sardonic smile he was coming to know.

  ‘That’s right, Doctor, you’re not.’

  ‘In that case, perhaps you don’t need me any more.’

  Drury nodded. ‘Not at the moment, Dr Cadman, and thank you for your assistance. I shall want a formal statement from you later. In the meantime, salvage what you can of the night. Nothing else you’ve thought of?’

  The question came as Cadman was on the point of turning back to the hall and leaving. He jerked to a halt as though struck a physical blow.

  What made the superintendent ask that question? Had he seen the girl in the front garden?

  He recovered quickly and turned to say, ‘Only that I’ve been expecting your — what are they called? — technical crew. You know, fingerprint men and suchlike. They haven’t turned up.’

  ‘They’ll be along, Doctor. Usually I prefer to have a look round first without too many people in the way. Besides, I hate getting graphite on my fingers.’

  Dr Cadman nodded again and left. He walked at an even pace to his car and did not look to right or left while leaving the front garden. He felt guilty at keeping from Drury the fact that he had recognized his nephew’s fiancée at a most improbable hour darting like a phantom from bush to bush in the front garden of a house where only a short while before a man had been stabbed to death.

  As he drove along Croft Avenue his mind was troubled for a number of sharply conflicting reasons.

  Behind him in Holly Lawn he left a puzzled Frank Drury scowling at the broad back of Bill Hazard as the big inspector fingered his way through the contents of an open wardrobe.

  ‘I just asked him if he’d thought of anything else, and he jerked to a stop as though I’d shot him,’ Drury said, a man puzzled by something he had witnessed that he could not explain. ‘What the hell do you make of that, Bill?’

  ‘He may have thought of something that had nothing to do with this killing, but your words reminded him,’ said Hazard, continuing with his search.

  ‘No, he turned to say he’d expected to see what he called our technical crew arrive. I saw his face. It was a put-off. He’d thought of something and was covering up. I can’t think why.’

  There was the sound of a car pulling in to the kerb in the street and the double slam of car doors.

  Bill Hazard looked over his shoulder.

  ‘Here they are. I’d better get an ambulance moving in this direction.’

  ‘Yes, do that,’ Drury nodded, ‘and then look up Dr John Cadman in the directory and take a note of his number.’

  Chapter 2

  Dr John Cadman was finishing his favourite breakfast of bacon, egg, and tomato at a few minutes to eight. He made it a rule not to allow late-night calls to interfere with his daily routine and enjoyed as a consequence the reputation of a G.P. who did not rush his surgery hours.

  His wife, still a pretty woman after twenty years of marriage to a husband who had broken nights, had heard of the discovery in Croft Avenue. Toast and coffee was all she would take for her first meal of the day, and she was sipping her second cup when she said, ‘I remember the house because of the name Holly Lawn. I always thought it a peculiar name, though it’s certainly fitting.’

  Her husband looked up from his plate and grinned one-sidedly as he said, ‘When I left the damned place, Judy, I could have thought of several more appropriate names, none of them printable.’

  ‘Anything’s printable these days,’ she reminded him. ‘Though that doesn’t necessarily imply it’s readable.’

  John Cadman’s eyes widened as he stared at his wife, and his sardonic grin became suddenly lost. He had never ceased from being surprised at such unexpected but penetrating remarks his wife made without any warning. Their eyes met. She smiled and he nodded in a way she had come to know denoted vague approval for a reason she seldom understood. But after twenty years of what she deemed a successful marriage, she didn’t feel that reasons were as important as they once might have been to a new wife anxious about the future.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, again surprising him.

  He said, ‘You never wear those awful rollers some women use for their hair. Yet your head’s always neat and your hair never all over the place. What’s the secret?’

  ‘Enough money to tip well before I leave the hairdresser’s.’

  ‘Doesn’t it depend on how many times you arrive there?’

  Judy Cadman had a mouthful of excellent teeth. She displayed most of them before offering a piece of feminine advice.

  ‘Don’t think like a male, darling.’

  Her husband put the last piece of bacon in his mouth as the front-door bell rang.

  ‘Damn!’ he grunted. ‘Don’t say that Superintendent Drury is chasing me.’

  His wife put down her coffee cup and rose. ‘I’ll go and see,’ she volunteered. ‘But don’t drain the coffeepot — in case you’re right, John.’

  The caller proved to be, not Drury, but Rollo Hackley, the son of Judy’s elder sister Gwen, who was married to a man devoted to a pets-food cannery in Hartlepool. Stephen Hackley was making a great deal of money these days, but secretly Judy wondered if that could possibly compensate her sister for having to live in Hartlepool. Rollo had escaped to London after leaving Durham University and, much to the scorn of his prosperous father, preferred curious hours in Fleet Street as a junior reporter on the struggling Morning Gazette to more steady ones with burnished prospects in an office attached to the processing factory of Hackley’s Pet Foods, Ltd., with the brand name ‘Pet Diets’ on every tin.

  When Steve Hackley’s independent-mi
nded son followed his aunt into the breakfast-room, John Cadman thought how much the young man took after his mother and aunt. There was little of his father in his appearance. He felt a twinge of regret at the failure of himself and Judy to produce any children.

  His nephew’s glance went to the transistor radio on a worktop beside a cupboard.

  ‘Not interested in the eight o’clock news, John?’ Rollo asked, showing a set of teeth that matched his aunt’s.

  ‘I had a late night.’

  ‘That should have been the reason for listening.’

  Judy was the first to get his meaning. ‘You mean the Croft Avenue murder is on it.’

  ‘It should be. It was on the seven o’clock,’ Rollo said, sitting on a chair by the door leading into the garden. ‘Which is why you see me on a filthy misty morning.’

  His aunt switched on the small transistor set to hear the announcer reading the end of the news summary. She switched it off again.

  ‘Too late,’ she said, sounding disappointed.

  Her husband was watching Rollo, the one-sided grin back on his face.

  ‘You’ve come for a cup of coffee, of course.’

  ‘No one makes coffee like Aunt Judy.’

  ‘Flatterer,’ she said, pleased at the tribute, and reaching for a fresh cup and saucer. ‘You’ve come for information straight from the horse’s mouth.’

  ‘If the stable door hasn’t been bolted after the horse has gone.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ asked his uncle.

  ‘The seven o’clock news mentioned Superintendent Drury. He has Bill Hazard with him. They’re a close team, John. It just could be you were told not to talk to the Press.’

  John Cadman grinned widely at his nephew’s reference to himself as Press. He wondered how it would sound if he referred to himself as the medical profession. It might be enough to get him certified.

  ‘No, I wasn’t told to keep a still tongue in my head, Rollo,’ he said.

  ‘Fine. Then you can give me what you know before I turn up at the Gazette. That should earn a grudging word of thanks from old Simpson, our news editor.’

  By the time Rollo had finished the cup of coffee poured for him by his aunt, he knew as much as John Cadman could tell him. The recital had not brought a look of excitement to the nephew’s face.

  ‘Put like that, John, it doesn’t sound much,’ he said.

  ‘You mean it was hardly worth struggling through the mist to collect. Well, never mind. The coffee, I’m sure, made the trip worthwhile.’

  Rollo Hackley grinned.

  ‘Now, you two,’ said Judy Cadman. ‘Stop sparring. You haven’t told us what the announcer said about your uncle.’

  ‘He said the man who discovered the body was Dr John Cadman, and that Superintendent Drury had taken over the case. The victim wasn’t named. Oh, yes, he added that Dr Cadman had been returning from a late-night call.’

  ‘Nothing about the streets being dark due to the power strike?’ the doctor inquired.

  His nephew shook his head. ‘Why do you ask? Was that relevant in any way?’

  John Cadman’s face remained bland. He didn’t want to lead Rollo into a blind alley.

  ‘I was only thinking that darkness can help a man who wants to vanish after committing murder.’

  ‘Why a man necessarily?’ the younger man probed.

  ‘Just my impression. The victim was stabbed in the back and the knife reached the heart. It didn’t suggest a woman’s work to me, but then I’ve been spared much experience with modern Butch types.’

  ‘John!’ exclaimed Judy Cadman, feigning shock at his choice of words.

  Rollo stood up. ‘Well, thanks for the coffee, Aunt Judy.’

  ‘Another cup? I think I can squeeze out another.’

  ‘No, thanks. John.’ The young man turned to his uncle. ‘It’s all right if I quote you?’

  ‘If you mean correctly — of course. But don’t put words into my mouth. I don’t want to rub this Superintendent Drury the wrong way. What’s his reputation?’

  ‘Competent. He’ll get the killer.’

  ‘You sound very assured.’

  ‘That’s the sort of detective Drury is. Well, I’ll be battling my way back through the misty rush hour, folks. I’ll ring you later, John, if that’s okay.’

  ‘Any time that isn’t surgery hours, Rollo, though I can’t see how I’ll be much use to you. I’ve got to make a statement to the police and then I’ll imagine they’ll be pleased to forget me. I came on the body within minutes — ’

  John Cadman stopped short, seeming a little confused.

  ‘You’ve been holding out,’ his nephew accused, smiling but looking keenly at the other.

  ‘I just mean that, being a doctor, I could tell that the dead man had not been dead long. That’s all.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘I think you’d better let the police surgeon give his opinion first, Rollo.’

  ‘Very well. But strictly off the record?’

  John Cadman hesitated. ‘A few minutes.’

  ‘You said that before, John. How many? Five — fifteen — thirty?’

  ‘You’re pushing, Rollo.’

  ‘Sorry, John, but this could be important — and it is off the record.’

  ‘Possibly five minutes after the murderer left the house.’

  Rollo whistled. ‘My God! You could have passed him in the street.’

  His uncle nodded. ‘Very possibly, and before you ask any more questions,’ he added dryly, ‘that did occur to Superintendent Drury. Now let me ask a question. How’s Carol?’

  The keen look faded from the nephew’s face. To the watching John Cadman it seemed to evaporate, like steam in a warm atmosphere. What it left behind was a mask. The doctor wondered what the mask concealed.

  ‘I could wish you hadn’t asked, John.’

  Judy Cadman turned from fiddling with the objects on the worktop where she had replaced the radio.

  ‘Why, Rollo! Whatever is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Carol sent me back my ring just over a week ago.’ Her nephew tried to smile, but it was far too grim. She knew he had been hurt and felt a little sick with apprehension, wondering what the hurt would do to him. ‘Ten days or so,’ he added, ‘can be a long time, Aunt Judy.’

  ‘But why, Rollo? She must have said why.’

  John Cadman remained silent, content to allow his wife to ask questions he wanted to have answered.

  ‘She didn’t say. I was a bit shocked. I forgot to ask for a reason. After all, Carol had returned my ring, so she had a reason. What it was couldn’t matter — and it certainly wouldn’t take back the ring.’

  ‘You poor boy!’

  It was the wrong thing to say. Rollo fidgeted and looked hot, and to change the tempo his uncle said, ‘You still in love with her?’

  He received a straight wide-eyed stare.

  ‘I’ll always love Carol. She knows that. I believe something’s happened,’ the young man said earnestly, looking less prepared to escape. ‘I’m not married to her, so she’s free to turn me down if she wants to, but anything that makes her want to must be’ — he hesitated for a word and finally chose — ‘bad.’

  Judy Cadman tried to retrieve her mistake by sounding practical.

  ‘Is she still in her secretarial job?’

  ‘As far as I know. I believe she was going up North.’

  John Cadman came to a decision reluctantly. He said, ‘Rollo, there’s something I should tell you.’

  His voice had changed. There was a gravity to the words that instantly focused the attention of his listeners. His wife sensed that this was a moment to remain silent.

  ‘About Carol?’

  The doctor nodded. ‘I saw her last night, Rollo.’

  The young man’s chin jerked up. ‘Sure it was her, John?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘I wasn’t mistaken,’ John Cadman said gravely. ‘She was in the front garden of that house in Croft Avenu
e, and she was damned afraid.’

  Judy Cadman gave a little choking sound and crammed a hand against her mouth. She sat down abruptly. The hand remained pushed against her lips as though to prevent her saying words she could later regret.

  ‘Did you try to find her when you left?’ Rollo asked.

  ‘It was too dark in the garden to look, and in any case I didn’t want to draw the attention of the police to her.’

  ‘Thanks for that. But this could turn sticky for you later.’

  John Cadman smiled slightly. ‘It could have been a trick of the light on the bushes. But there’s something else, still not for publication.’

  Judy Cadman sat rigid, looking at this surprising husband of hers in muted wonder.

  ‘I told Drury I hadn’t set eyes on the dead man before, and at the time I believed that. In a sense it was true, but not entirely. The light moustache fooled me. On the way home I got to imagining him without that moustache and that told me something I’d forgotten. I had seen him before — but without his moustache.’

  ‘Then ring up Frank Drury and tell him. He’ll understand.’

  ‘It isn’t quite that simple, Rollo. I didn’t see him alone on that previous occasion. He was with a woman.’

  ‘Who was she, John? Don’t be tedious, darling,’ said Judy, finding her voice. ‘We aren’t the police, and this could be complicated. We ought to know.’

  ‘Cecil Weddon’s wife.’

  ‘Weddon the bank manager?’ Rollo asked.

  His uncle nodded as his aunt snapped, ‘Beryl Weddon. Flashy. Bottle red hair. Hot pants. And too damned good-looking for any bank manager with a career to concentrate on.’

  ‘Why, Aunt Judy!’ Rollo’s grin returned. ‘You sound as though you dislike the woman.’

  ‘Not dislike — distrust,’ retorted his aunt, a mite waspishly. There was a touch of challenge in the stare she shared between her husband and her nephew. Neither chose to take it up and she asked, ‘Where did you see them, John?’