A Well Kept Secret

by A. B. King

  Chapter Twenty-Eight. Sunday Morning.

  Simultaneously with the sound of the shot the gun went spinning from Burton’s hand, and with an audible gasp he staggered down the steps and fell forward onto his knees on the cellar floor. Even as he landed, he recovered sufficient to lunge forward with his left hand towards the fallen weapon, but Martin was quicker. His reflexes already on a hair trigger, he was leaping forward even as the man fell, and he kicked the weapon spinning away from him to the far side of the cellar before the searching fingers could reach it. Ignoring the groaning man writhing near his feet he looked up the stairs to see who had come in the nick of time to save them.

  Contrary to anything he might have expected it wasn’t a uniformed police marksman at the top of the steps. Emerging from the shadow was a short round, cherubic man; a man with familiar features, yet subtly different.

  “Edwards!” Martin exclaimed in complete astonishment. “I cannot imagine how you come to be here, but I’m sure glad you are!”

  “Yes Mr Isherwood,” said the figure, slowly descending the stairs, his features becoming clearer as he approached, a small automatic held in his right hand. “You might say my appearance is, shall we say, providential? Now, if you would be so kind as to rejoin your daughter and housekeeper, and stay there?”

  Gone was the verbose, excitable and totally ineffectual personality of the butterfly man; in its place the quiet measured tones of a person who knew exactly what he was about.

  “I don’t understand,” said Martin, his relief at the sudden rescue evaporating swiftly as he realised that the situation might not after all be as welcome as he had thought.

  “Then I shall explain, now please move back, there’s a good fellow.”

  There was no mistaking the aura of authority in the quiet voice. Martin stepped back, once again putting reassuring arms around the two most important people in his life. They looked with shocked eyes at the figure of Burton slumped against the wall to the side of the stairs, and then at the short round figure of the spurious butterfly collector, trying to take in what was happening.

  “I have returned yet again to your house because of some unfinished business,” Edwards continued, looking down at the man who now crouched on the floor nursing an injured arm from which blood seeped out and onto the floor, “Which, I may add, does not concern butterflies.”

  Martin looked at Burton, and then back at Edwards.

  “You mean?” he ventured as a new suspicion formed in his mind.

  “Yes, I think you understand. Now, in the circumstances, I feel it will be better if the three of you sat down with your backs to that far wall.”

  There was that quality in his voice that suggested that he was even more ruthless than the killer he had just shot. Martin had no idea of how the man came to be there, yet he knew instinctively that any attempt to bluster would only invite more bloodshed. He backed off, and with Beverley on one side and June on the other he sat down against the far wall as directed. They both clutched him, and he could feel the quivering of fear, and there was nothing he could do to comfort them.

  Edwards seated himself on the steps, the gun in his hand, as he looked at Burton, who had also pulled himself into a sitting position, pain-wracked eyes glowering at the man who faced him.

  “Who the hell are you?” the wounded man snarled between gritted teeth.

  “Our mutual friends here know me as Hugh Edwards,” he answered calmly.

  “If that’s your real name, then I’m a Dutchman!”

  “I doubt you are a Hollander,” Edwards agreed. “Then your name isn’t Peter Buxted either, so what’s in a name?”

  “All right; what do you want?”

  “I don’t actually want anything.”

  “Then why are you here, what the hell are you doing shooting at people who’ve never done you any harm?”

  “I might ask you the same question,” Edwards answered calmly. “Since you ask, I will tell you. You might call me a specialist contractor. In return for an agreed commission I carry out certain specified tasks. I am extremely expensive, working only for the richest clients. My current assignment is to see that justice is carried out upon the person of a certain Mr Phillip Burton, late Sergeant in the local constabulary.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Are you really as obtuse as you pretend to be?” Edwards asked rhetorically. He didn’t wait for an answer. “Some twenty-five years ago,” he continued, “you organised a situation that netted for you a sum of money that was in the region of a million pounds in used notes. Using your position as a police officer you obtained information concerning the movement of this money belonging to a London businessman, to another businessman in Glasgow. You determined to make use of this information in order to divert these funds to your own use. A good deal of careful planning went into the operation, the details of which I will not bore you with. You involved Mrs Collin’s late father in the venture, promising him great riches, yet neglecting to inform him that the only reward he would actually receive for his services would be a bullet. From your point of view of course, this was necessary, because he was the only witness to the actual crime who might possibly seek to incriminate you later.”

  “I still don’t know what you are talking about,” Burton blustered, yet Martin could see the fear growing in the man’s eyes, “I don’t know a thing about any robbery; certainly I don't know anything at all about any killing!”

  “Oh, I think you do, but no matter. The car containing the money was cleverly diverted along the route you planned, and at a pre-arranged point it was pulled over in a legitimate way by a uniformed police officer. There were two men in the car, one of whom just happened to be the son of the aforesaid London businessman to whom I have already referred. Both men were executed, as was your plan. You then returned to this house with Carpenter, and here you brought the proceeds of your crime down into this cellar, ensuring the late Dr Marston’s full co-operation by means of blackmail. Once Carpenter’s usefulness to you was finished, he was executed also.”

  “You’re just bluffing; if you think he’s dead, where’s his body, eh?” Burton snarled, but the fear was all too apparently growing in his eyes.

  “The actual hiding-place of the late Mr Carpenter’s remains are of little consequence to me,” Edwards said in his rather bored voice. “However, the lengths to which you have gone to get your hands on this property suggest to me he lies here somewhere. I have already investigated the grounds and know he isn’t there, ergo, he is inside. It is my considered opinion that his body was never found for the very good and simple reason that his remains were dropped rather unceremoniously into this long disused well.”

  “You have a very active imagination!”

  “Mr Burton, it will be a simple matter for me to ask Mr Isherwood here to tie a rope round your body and lower you down the well shaft so that you can see for yourself what is down there. I rather imagine he would like to leave you there, come to think of it.”

  Burton baulked at that. “Why are you telling me all this rubbish?” he blustered.

  “Because it is part of my contract; my principal desires that you should know why you are being brought to justice.”

  “You actually intend to kill me?”

  “Naturally.”

  “For what; you don’t have a single shred of evidence to support these wild allegations of yours!”

  “You are forgetting, Mr Burton, that I am not a judge, I am a contractor; I don’t need ‘evidence’ as you call it. Suffice it to say that I have undertaken a certain task and I am carrying it out.”

  “All right, so you are a professional killer!”

  “If you like; personally, I still prefer ‘Contractor’ because anyone, even you, can kill. With me it is a highly skilled profession. I am a specialist and I only work for the very wealthiest people as I have already mentioned.”

  “Then whatever you are being paid, I’ll double it!”

  “O
h, my dear Mr Burton, have you no concept of professional ethics?” Edwards exclaimed, rolling his eyes heavenwards. “I couldn’t possibly do that; unlike you I have my reputation to think of. Besides, I already have more money than I strictly need.”

  “Look, no one need ever know; you can shoot that lot over there, collect your fee and I’ll vanish!”

  Edwards looked at him blankly for several seconds, and then sighed as if in resignation

  “You know,” he explained patiently, “that’s your trouble, you have no principles. You are the sort of person who is always bad news, the sort of low-life who would stab his own grandmother in the back if it suited him. You live your life in the perpetual delusion of grandeur peculiar to the psychopath. You think you are successful, yet even those closest to you wouldn’t trust you to never sell them down the river if it appeared expedient. If you possessed such an abstract concept, you would have many deaths on your conscience Mr Burton, and if I had not intervened, three more entirely innocent people would have been added to your tally.”

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” Burton said, and the note of desperation was growing in his voice, “I had no intention of killing them; they were going to fly abroad!”

  “Possibly, yet on the wings of angels I think. No, Mr Burton, I suspect that you planned on dumping their bodies in the well along with the late Mr Carpenter’s. You see, unlike you, I am an extremely thorough man; I know that you are here on your own; there is no colleague waiting, no additional vehicles, therefore you fully intended that these innocent people would be sacrificed to protect your own skin. When you staged your so-called 'master crime', you tangled with the wrong people; you simply couldn’t see that you were completely out of your league. I’m afraid your sins have finally caught up with you; the least you can do is face the end like a man. It has taken a long time; you have been reasonably skilful in hiding your tracks, yet not skilful enough. My Principal had suspicions about you from the start, and these were heightened when you so conveniently vanished from the scene shortly after the crime. His undercover investigators uncovered a possible link with Springwater House, and so a discrete watch was kept on the activities of its lawful occupants, and was maintained for a good many years. Some while later the actions of a certain Peter Buxted became of interest, and when Dr Marston’s wife died we suspected that if evidence linking you to ex-Sergeant Burton, and to those two deaths still lay concealed somewhere on the premises, the guilty person would inevitably appear out of the woodwork to eliminate it. My Principal needed to be certain that he had the right man you see. It was a simple matter to bug your phones and office, and piece-by-piece the true story was put together, and we discovered, just as our mutual friend Mr Isherwood did, that Buxted and Burton were one and the same man.”

  Burton glowered at the little man, but he said nothing. Martin could see the fear growing in his eyes, and much as he loathed the man, the thought that he was about to witness a cold-blooded execution made him grow cold inside.

  “Look, maybe the man is a killer,” he interrupted. “Why not just hand him over to the police?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr Isherwood, you know that that is not possible,” Edwards responded. “I can understand your squeamishness. I shall of course arrange for you and the ladies to leave here before I complete my work.”

  “Look, this is getting bloody silly!” Burton exploded, still nursing his injured arm. “You can’t just shoot a man down in cold blood; it isn’t human! Just name your price and I’ll meet it!”

  “I’m afraid there is nothing you could offer that can cause me to renege on a contract,” Edwards said calmly. “Please try not to fret yourself too much; my task is nearly done. To complete the picture that I was asked to pass on to you; my principal believed you probably imagined your hold over Castleman to be satisfactory, unfortunately, like others I needn’t mention, he could easily be persuaded to provide information. After the murders he disposed of Carpenter’s car as per your instructions, and when Mr Isherwood came snooping about a quarter of a century later, it wasn’t only you that was informed of his interest in certain matters. You see, Mr Burton, I am acting on behalf of a very high-principled businessman, and he needed to be sure he had the right man. My services had been engaged when Dr Marston died in, shall we say, dubious circumstances. I was asked to prepare the ground in readiness, which I did by adopting the guise of a lepidopterist. Finally, when all the pieces were in place, he approached me with the ratification of the contract. Money is not important to the principal, but the un-avenged death of a son and employee is. As always, I chose my time and location carefully, and so here we are.”

  “So you really are simply planning to gun me down in cold blood for money?”

  “If you chose to put it that way, yes.”

  “And what about the witnesses?” he snarled, but his voice was tinged now with desperation. “Even if you send them away, they will know what you have done, and they will talk! You will have to silence them as well, won’t you? And how will you explain their deaths, and what about the people who already know about their suspicions, eh? Tell me; where will it all stop? ”

  “Oh, my dear Mr Burton, are you really so devoid of all understanding? Do you honestly imagine that I would lower myself to kill anyone for whom I have not accepted a bona-fide contract? As I have already pointed out, that is your trouble; no principles, and you fall into the trap of thinking that everybody else is the same. Since you pose the question, once the job is done, Mrs Collins will bind Mr Isherwood securely under my direction. Mr Isherwood’s daughter will then do the same with Mrs Collins, and finally I will pinion Miss Beverley myself. I will then take my leave. They will be able to move to a limited extent, and eventually ascend these steps into the house, where finally they will reach the mobile telephone that I observe Mr Isherwood obliging dropped on the hall floor.

  All of this will naturally take a certain amount of time. Meanwhile, ‘Mr Edwards’ will vanish as if he never existed, which is literally quite true; I remind you, Mr Burton, that I am a professional. This is by no means the first time I have carried out such an assignment, and I doubt it will be the last. You have been an interesting case, but my work is nearly done. I now have a far more challenging task coming up in another part of the world, although I am sure that that is of no great interest to you.”

  With a cry of animal fury, Burton suddenly launched himself from where he sat on the floor, but it was a futile gesture of defiance. Without moving his body Edwards brought the gun up and fired just once, and Burton sprawled lifeless at his feet.

  It all happened so quickly that it was over before any of the three horrified witnesses had a chance to say or do anything. They looked at Hugh Edwards in horror. No longer the figure of fun but a professional assassin; the sort of person beloved of fiction yet so very rarely encountered in real life. They watched as if having difficulty in believing what their eyes were telling them as the man calmly put the gun away into a shoulder holster, before reaching out with his foot to turn the inert body over. It flopped lifelessly to one side; eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling, and a neat round hole in the centre the forehead.

  The man called Edwards seemed satisfied and leaned calmly forward to put his hand in the dead man’s pocket. From this he extracted the gun wrapped in the handkerchief. Moving calmly and methodically he wiped the weapon clean, and then inserted it into the limp fingers of the corpse. Satisfied, he then fished around until he found the envelope with the will in it. He tore this into shreds and scattered it on the floor. Finally he stood up and looked across at the shocked people who still sat against the wall on the far side of the cellar. Only Martin was in full possession of his faculties, and even he remained tense, fearing what the next few seconds might hold for them all

  “I’m truly sorry you needed to witness that,” Edwards observed calmly, “I can assure you that it was never my intention that you should be in here at the end. As I am sure you will appreciate, in my line of work I pref
er to have no witness; sometimes it is unavoidable. I admit that I hadn’t allowed for Mr Collins putting in an appearance when he did. I knew that Mr Burton was coming, and it was intended that he would be dealt with and removed without you knowing anything about it. As it turned out, I needed to adapt to the new situation, hence your presence. Even in the new circumstances I intended that you would be detained in another part of the house whilst I completed my work but I’m afraid that Burton had no sense of decency even at the end. I trust you will accept my apologies?”

  “What happens now?” Martin asked, trying hard to keep the tension out of his voice.

  “Exactly what I explained to your late tormentor; I note that there is rope over there on the shelf which should prove adequate for the purpose. By the time you reach your phone, which, by the way, I have examined to ensure that it was not damaged when falling to the floor, I shall be long gone. I much regret that our acquaintanceship has had to finish in this manner; I’m quite sure you will all recover from the experience.”

  He walked across to where a hank of thin-ish rope lay coiled on one of the shelves. He tested it, and then lobbed it across so that it landed at June’s feet.

  “You have a very bright daughter, Mr Isherwood,” he remarked. “I could tell at once that she had spotted the fact that I wasn’t exactly what I claimed to be. Fortunately the detection did not seriously interfere with my plans.”

  He glanced at Beverley, who still sat cowering with shock created by all the violence she had been witness to, and clinging desperately to her father.

  “You will go far in this world young lady,” he added in a kindly voice. “Given time, you will forget all about this sordid business. Now, please don’t worry about anything else; in the sunlight of a new day this will all seem like a bad dream.”

  He looked at June. “It has been made pretty clear to me that your father never knew what Burton planned my dear. Maybe his career was not as honest as some, certainly he never willingly harmed anyone, and I can assure you that his devotion to you and your mother is beyond question. What is left of him is undoubtedly at the bottom of this well shaft where Burton put him. In the fullness of time you will be able to provide him with a proper Christian burial. Now, please take the rope and tie Mr Isherwood as I direct.”