The Mind of Mr Soames

by Maine, Charles Eric

  He stopped at the point, gasping for breath and resisting the black sickness that threatened to engulf him. There was no time to waste. It was impossible to know whether the unseen George had heard the shout or not, or whether the astringent sound of breaking glass had attracted any attention. The farm was quiet and grey under the leaden sky, and the only sounds were the hissing of his own breath and the pounding of his heart, and in the background the incessant patter of rain on the sloping glass roof.

  Quickly he dressed, pulling on the wet clothes with trembling hands and fumbling with saturated material that kept sticking to his skin. He abandoned the overcoat, for it had taken the worst punishment from the rain overnight and was badly soiled with mud. Instead he took a black waterproof cape from the shoulders of the man on the floor, wiping off flecks of blood with his bare hand, then picked up his canvas bag and went out into the rain once more, glancing back only once in the direction of the farmhouse. There was no sign of pursuit or alarm as he passed through the small wooden gate that led to the safety of the open country, and he knew that luck was still with him.

  He hurried on across the fields in the driving rain.

  ❖

  ‘We’re getting somewhere at last,’ Detective-Inspector Bryce said to Dr Breuer late that evening. ‘We think we now have Soames pinned down to a relatively small area north of the village of Harnwell.’

  He was sitting in Breuer’s office smoking a cigarette and breaking up a match into tiny fragments with his fingernails.

  ‘How did you manage to find him?’ Dr Breuer asked.

  ‘A Mr Henderson who has a smallholding about eight miles from Harnwell was attacked rather brutally in his greenhouse. Later in hospital he was able to make a statement. The attacker was a naked man answering to the description of Soames.’

  ‘Naked?’ Breuer queried, frowning. ‘I don’t like the sound of that.’

  ‘I don’t think it points to anything sinister. Soames had left his clothing all over the greenhouse floor to dry. Apparently he received a thorough soaking the night before and he thought this would be a safe place to rest up and dry off. Mr Henderson found him under the bench, crouching near the heating pipes.’

  ‘Poor devil,’ Breuer commented.

  ‘The poor devil,’ Bryce went on sardonically, ‘came out of hiding and promptly attacked Henderson with a bucket and a succession of flower pots until he beat him into unconsciousness. I’m afraid our Soames is a dangerous character,’

  ‘Yes, yes—I’m not denying it, under the circumstances.’

  ‘And there was the incident of the dog. We’ve established as a near certainty that it was Soames who virtually kicked it to death. Fortunately it happened to be a dog and not a man.’ Breuer sighed and poured himself a whisky. ‘You think there might be further violence?’

  ‘We must assume so. He will go to any length to prevent recapture.’

  Bryce inhaled deeply on his cigarette and blew out smoke as if he hated it. ‘When he escaped from the greenhouse he left a grey overcoat behind. We’ve traced the owner—a Mr Richard Dewison of twelve Alderney Way, Harnwell—and dug up a nest of lies and double-talk which we’re still investigating. One thing emerges, that Soames has apparently added sexual assault to his crime record.’

  ‘I find that difficult to believe,’ Breuer protested. ‘After all, he wouldn’t even know...’

  ‘Apparently the thing was, as it were, demonstrated to him unwittingly while he was resting in a wood. He stole the jacket of a man named Forsyth who did not report it to the police for fear that his wife might learn the true circumstances under which the theft took place. In the same way Dewison’s wife did not report the fact that she had been assaulted by Soames to the police, because she was afraid the full truth of how they found Soames might come to light.’

  ‘This is getting just a little too deep for me,’ Breuer said, frowning in concentration.

  ‘Well, the story is that the Dewisons were driving back from a party the night before last when they found Soames lying unconscious by the side of the road in the open country. It appeared that he had been hit by a car, but not badly injured. So they kindly took him back to their home and put him into a spare bed.’

  ‘But surely they should have taken him to hospital or notified the police.’

  ‘Exactly, but for one minor difficulty. Mr Dewison already had a conviction and disqualification for drunk driving to his credit. The disqualification has lapsed, but he was afraid it might be thought that he had knocked Soames down in his car. He admits he had had a few drinks at the party although he denies being drunk.’

  ‘Perhaps he did,’ Breuer suggested. ‘I mean, perhaps it was his car...’

  ‘We think it probably was. There were a few threads of fibre adhering to part of the nearside front wing, trapped under the chrome strip. The lab boys are checking, though we can’t be sure they’re from Soames’s stolen coat until we find Soames himself.’

  Breuer finished his drink and poured himself another. Bryce refused the offer of whisky or even a beer, but contented himself by stubbing out his cigarette and lighting another.

  ‘According to Mrs Dewison, Soames slept until late morning while she cleaned up his clothes to make them respectable. The name on letters and cards in the jacket was Forsyth, so naturally she did not suspect it was really Soames. Apparently Soames woke up, had a bath, and repaid her for her hospitality by getting drunk on gin, raping her, stealing her husband’s overcoat and ten pounds of her money, and then clearing off without so much as a thank you. And she still thought it was Forsyth.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Breuer said in bewilderment. ‘I really don’t know. How much of this can be true?’

  ‘All of it, or very little of it, but there’s no smoke without fire. Certainly Soames was there, and certainly he left with Dewison’s overcoat. It was the one we found in the greenhouse.’

  ‘But the accusation of... rape?’

  ‘We can’t be sure, but it’s a factor we have to take into account. We have to assume the worst—that Soames is not only capable of irrational violence, but also sexual assault.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. One can’t afford to take chances.’

  Bryce stood up, balancing himself squarely on his feet, arms behind his back and cigarette drooping idly from his lips.

  ‘It is a matter of utmost urgency that we find him without further delay, Dr Breuer, and since we are dealing with a man who is irrational and irresponsible by normal standards, I should be grateful for the assistance of one or more members of your staff in the final stages of the chase.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Breuer said vaguely, ‘though it’s a little difficult to see exactly what they could do...’

  ‘Soames in a corner may prove to be very dangerous. One or two of the staff doctors who are familiar to him may be able to exercise persuasion and authority. I think it is possible that he is a frightened and lonely man, living under appalling conditions of exposure he could never have anticipated, and wishing he had had the good sense to stay in his own room here at the Institute.’

  ‘You may well be right. I take it you would like a member of my staff to accompany the police—to be part of the spearhead, as it were...’

  ‘That’s the general idea.’

  ‘Very well,’ Breuer agreed. ‘I think perhaps Dr Conway, as he knows Soames best, and...’ He broke off and eyed Bryce thoughtfully.

  ‘There’s one other man who also understands Mr Soames but in a different way. He might well know more about the way his mind would react under conditions of stress—if he was driven into a corner, for instance. He may not be willing to spend a night out in the rain on a cross country chase, of course, but I’ll try.’

  He lifted the internal telephone.

  ‘Put me through to Dr Takaito, please,’ he requested, then turning to Bryce, added: ‘After all, he’s the one who started all the trouble. He was in at the start and no doubt he would like to be in at the end.’

&nb
sp; The detective inspector nodded and concentrated on his cigarette.

  17

  As the day progressed his thoughts turned inward to the pain and fever of his own body so that he was hardly aware of the nature of the countryside as he traversed it. The rain had eased to a fine drizzle that was almost a mist in the air, but while the waterproof cape afforded protection it did nothing to help dry out the wet clothes clinging to his hot, shivering skin. His feet stumbled along rather than walked, for the effort of controlling his movements was proving too much for him, but he had to keep on.

  Vaguely he knew he was retracing his steps in the direction of the village and the house where the woman lived. It was the only possible destination for him, and he knew now that he should never have left; she had helped him before and she would have continued to help him if only he had been firm enough to refuse to go. But it was still not too late to undo the damage.

  He rested for a while among some trees on the side of a hill, wondering whether he ought to have some food, but there was no hunger in him, only sickness. When he moved on again he left the canvas bag and its contents behind. It was too heavy to carry, and the things it contained were useless: he did not want the food and he had no desire to shave or tidy his hair. All he needed was a warm, soft bed in which he could sleep until the fever in his body had burned itself out.

  It came to him after a while that the land was unfamiliar and he was walking in the wrong direction. The village, he told himself, picturing the half remembered High Street where he had done his shopping, but he did not even know the name of the village. I will recognise it when I see it, he assured himself.

  He avoided a distant town, keeping always to the fields and hedgerows. From time to time he drew close enough to a village to confirm that it was not the one he was seeking, and then he would change his direction to search elsewhere.

  Later in the afternoon he curled up behind a brick buttress underneath a small bridge and slept for several hours while the waters of a narrow stream lapped and gurgled at his feet. He awoke, stiff and cold in every joint and muscle, to discover that the rain had finally stopped, although the sky was still a sombre grey. The daylight was fading with the approach of another night, and this unwelcome sign spurred him to greater efforts for unless he found the village and the house and the woman before dark he would obviously be forced to spend another night under the open sky with its dark rain-swollen clouds. But it was as if the village had disappeared from the face of the earth.

  He saw them from afar as he reached the brow of a hill and acting on some inner caution dropped to the ground. There were six of them coming across the fields from a distant road on which a black saloon car and a small truck were parked. Four of the men wore drab khaki-coloured uniform and one of them had a big black dog on a lead, while the other two men had dark blue uniform with peaked caps. They were scattered in open formation across the countryside and advancing slowly but purposefully.

  Alarm trembled in his brain. He dragged himself backward over the wet ground until he was far enough down the hill to be able to stand up safely, and then he began to run, forcing one unsteady leg in front of the other in headlong flight. They were after him, he was certain of that—six of them and the dog tracking him into the night across the open country. And there might be more of them, groups of uniformed men with dogs, closing in on him from other directions. The panic became deeper and more intense, twisting like cold steel in his stomach.

  Among the trees of a small wooded copse he paused to regain his breath and look back, but they were not yet in sight. A few minutes later, however, when he was ready to move on again, the first of the pursuers appeared as a tiny bobbing silhouette on the brow of the hill. He hurried on in mounting fear and despair.

  The evening thickened, bringing with it the concealing black curtain of night. Now they would not be able to see him at all, even if they drew near, and only the sound of his progress across the ground, the faint wet slopping of the grass against his shoes and the occasional crackle of a snapping twig could possibly betray his presence. But presently, climbing another hill, he looked back and saw six bobbing lights in the distance, advancing relentlessly through the night.

  The fear sharpened and crystallised into a memory—the night when he had been hunted through the walled grounds of the Institute by men carrying blinding electric torches—and the memory in turn became an additional fear that seemed to drain the strength from his legs. When he came to a tree he held on to it for support until the trembling and shivering of his body quietened down. The bobbing lights were a little nearer, he thought.

  If I could climb a tree they would miss me, he told himself. They would pass underneath and they might not think to look up. But even as the thought illuminated his mind with a gleam of hope he knew that he had not the strength to climb a tree, and that the only hope was to force his weakening legs to move on and on in search of a secure hiding-place.

  Presently, breaking through a hedge, he thought he saw the lights of a village ahead, but as he watched the lights seemed to bob and weave about. He counted them in dismay, losing track of his numbering as he reached eleven. Quickly he glanced back to confirm that the other six were still to the rear, and they were, if anything closer than ever.

  He recognised the uselessnesss of thought—of any attempt to think—in face of the growing crisis. The fact of encirclement plucked at his mind with icy fingers of terror... to be trapped and pinned down by sheer weight of numbers. More than eleven men and another six men with how many unseen dogs...?

  He broke into a jog-trot, moving now to the right across the advancing lines in an effort to break through the narrowing circle while there was still time.

  ❖

  ‘What’s the position?’ Conway asked.

  He and Dr Takaito were standing by the black police car that had brought them to Harnwell. They were in the village High Street, and four other police cars were parked in line close to the kerb, as if the street had been taken over as an operational headquarters. Detective-Inspector Bryce had been conferring with a uniformed superintendent and an Army captain, and his face seemed cynically smug.

  ‘No further developments. We’ve got two hundred troops and fifty policemen out, not to mention nearly forty Alsatian guard dogs. The police have walkie-talkies so the moment anything breaks we shall know about it.’

  ‘Won’t it be difficult at night?’ Conway asked.

  ‘He’s got to sleep somewhere, or break into a farm outbuilding. We’ve alerted all farms within fifteen miles radius. He won’t sleep in the middle of a field, so we’re taking special care to beat all woods and copses and hedges. We want to force him to break cover, that’s all. The moment he moves the dogs will have him.’

  ‘Yes, I see,’ Conway murmured. ‘I wish there were some other way. I hate to think of that wretched man being hunted like a wild animal.’

  ‘On the evidence that is more or less what he is,’ Bryce commented. ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ he added, ‘I have to go and fix things up. We’re planning to take over the church hall as headquarters. It’s likely to be a long night.’

  He went off to rejoin the superintendent and the captain. Conway looked at Dr Takaito, who so far had shown no inquisitive interest in the proceedings, and said: ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think,’ said Takaito, ‘that it’s a cold night and I believe it is trying to rain again. We might as well sit in the police car until they take over the hall.’

  Conway agreed. They sat in the back seat of the empty car. Conway lit a cigarette.

  ‘You think they’ll catch him tonight?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Takaito quietly.

  ‘I’m not happy about the dogs...’

  ‘The dogs are doubtless well trained, which is more than we can say for Mr Soames. But he has already had one encounter with a dog, so I imagine he will be wary.’

  ‘I hope, when they catch him, that they will treat him gently.’

 
‘Why should they?’ Takaito asked. ‘He will not treat them gently. We have seen how violently he can act in circumstances of desperation. We may yet see murder tonight.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind so much if I didn’t feel quite so helpless. I can understand why they wanted us to be on the spot tonight, but what if the whole thing is suddenly over in a single bloody assault before we have a chance to intervene?’

  ‘Then it is over,’ Takaito said stoically, ‘and there is nothing we can do except make sure that Mr Soames is handled gently on his journey to prison, or prison hospital.’

  ‘I suppose there’s no alternative—to prison, I mean.’

  ‘None whatever.’

  They sat in silence until Detective-Inspector Bryce returned. He opened the rear door of the police car and said: ‘We shall be moving into the church hall in about ten minutes and setting up radio equipment. Meanwhile the WVS are going to fix up hot tea and coffee.’

  ‘Thank God for the WVS,’ Conway said.

  ‘As a matter of interest, Mrs Jennifer Dewison happens to be a member of the WVS locally,’ Bryce said. ‘She asked if she could help, and I said yes.’

  ‘She was the woman who claimed to have been assaulted by Mr Soames, wasn’t she?’ Conway asked.

  ‘That’s right. She’s sticking to her story, confused though it may be. It occurred to me that as psychiatrists you may be able to dig deeper than we can—that is, if you can draw her into conversation. She seems very withdrawn, and I think she volunteered to help with refreshments purely as a gesture of good faith.’

  ‘We’ll see what can be done,’ Conway agreed.

  The church hall, adjacent to the village church but set a little back, was hardly more than an oversized shed, but large enough to cater for Sunday classes, whist drives, unambitious dances and various social activities carried on in connection with the church. At one end was a stage with a curtain for simple theatrical essays, but the rest of the hall was a rectangular open space, with plain wooden chairs lining the walls. Some attempt had been made to polish the planked floor, but the effect was patchy and unsightly.