‘The blood was from the knife. Why should he have brought away the knife?’
‘To defend himself, perhaps? Maybe Rupert had a lucky escape not actually meeting him on the stairs. Or maybe he was frightened of leaving finger-prints—we know he was hurried, he had less time than he’d bargained for—Mr. Gemminy would have warned him, very likely, that Rupert was on his way. The old man wouldn’t die quick enough, perhaps, so he snatched up the knife—that would explain why two methods were used. But then—had he been careful enough about prints? if they’re found on the knife, that’s the end of him. So he plucks it out of the wound, wraps it round with something, conceals it under his uniform jacket…’
‘And Helen?’
‘Helen goes close up to him to embrace him—feels the hard ridge of the knife against his chest… Or he drops it, perhaps—he’ll have been pretty nervous, no doubt. At any rate she deduces what has happened—gets it away from him and in her rage and agony about her uncle, strikes out at him—’
‘The man was strangled,’ said Giles, white-lipped.
‘Are they sure which happened first?—after the immersion in the tank, I dare say it wasn’t easy to be certain. Anyone can stab a man in the back; and once he was weakened by the knife wound, it wouldn’t be too hard for a strong young woman to finish him off. And that might explain how she got him to the final hiding place—dragged him along, still alive but stupefied by pain and weakness, tied him up when she got him there and once he was totally helpless—’
‘Dear God!’ said Giles. He fought against it, the very thought was revolting. ‘The telephone call—’
‘At the knife point? Perhaps he’d told her how he’d tricked the police with the faked call from Gemminy’s office, perhaps he’d confessed it all—freely or at the knife point, as I say. So she forced him to do the thing again, use the same phrases, carry on the mystery, the strangeness, the hint of some horrible magic that he’d already begun when he’d impersonated Mr. Gemminy.’ He looked suddenly, keenly, into the white sick face. ‘My dear boy—it’s still only a game, isn’t it? Or if it’s the truth, you surely can’t go on caring for such a girl? Yet you can’t even bear to have her name mentioned in such a connection.’
‘You could hardly expect it,’ said Giles. ‘I’ve been in love with her all my life. To ask me to accept…’ His mind was sick, swooning with the horror of the thought of it. ‘That even for revenge, even in a red hot rage she could do such a thing—’
‘Better, all the same than doing it dispassionately; not in grief or anger but deliberately, in cold blood?’ And he asked: ‘What, after all, did you know about this girl? What if it was really a case, not of what Mr. Gemminy could tell Helen about her lover, but what he could tell the lover about her?’
The sun was going down, it was growing a little chilly. ‘Let’s walk up and down just one more turn and then we’ll go in and have tea.’ And he got up, seized Giles by the arm and walked with him again along the sanded path. ‘This young policeman—his past can’t after all have been so very bad? He’d been brought back to this country, encouraged by your uncle to join the police force; or only permitted, but at any rate your uncle knew all about it. Would the old man have been so rigidly, so positively against the marriage, if there hadn’t been something on the other side also? Or perhaps it was only on Helen’s side that the bad heredity lay? Perhaps he knew that she should not marry at all?’
‘She’s as good as gold,’ said Giles. ‘As good as gold.’
‘But we’re speaking not of her sins but of the sins of her forefathers.’ Giles jerked away his arm but the old man caught at it again, and held him fast. ‘Supposing Helen was not in love with the policeman at all? Supposing it was one of you two, yourself or Rupert?—she was just teasing you, making you both jealous, playing hard to get. But Mr. Gemminy doesn’t know that. He sees the young man below the window, watching, wondering what’s being said up there about him—and Helen. He calls him up—and tells him for his own sake as well as for Helen’s, that two such heredities shouldn’t mix. So the young man—predisposed, you see, by his own bad heredity—kills him. And coming to her with the blood of her beloved guardian still fresh on his hands, reveals that he now knows secrets of her own past—and if she will not “consent unto him” as the Bible says, may he not well reveal these secrets to prevent her marrying anyone else? Would you have married her under these circumstances? Would Rupert? Would you not always have been looking over your shoulders, asking yourselves what your children would become…?’ He was silent again. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that this perhaps was not an execution, though that may have been the excuse that the killer gave, even to herself. I think it was like the setting fire to the desk—a safety measure.’ And his bright old eye swivelled again to the set face. ‘Am I not getting very hot?’
‘You are getting as cold as ice,’ said Giles; very cold himself. ‘You were burning your fingers but now you have taken your hand away from the truth, and you’re cold again.’ And he pointed out: ‘The whole object of the exercise was that Uncle Gem wanted to “keep it in the family”—he wanted her to marry either Rupert or me. And he’d hardly have done that if her heredity had been so bad that she would commit murder to keep it a secret.’
They had come to the end of the path; turned now and started back towards the great spread of the mulberry tree and the bench beneath. From afar off a gong sounded; and below them as they started down the incline of the little hill, gardeners were straightening up, hands to loins, stretching, looking about them, gathering up their tools. ‘So,’ said the old man, ‘we are to leave Helen out of it, are we?’
‘Of course,’ said Giles. ‘As if Helen…’ And the hot white mist that invaded his mind always at the thought of Helen accused, welled up now like a miasma and sickened and stupefied him. When he emerged from it, the old man had embarked again upon his five questions. ‘Only they have perhaps changed a little bit now in order of importance. We asked ourselves why none of the police admitted having been shown the note about Helen, and we asked ourselves why someone should have gone for the fire brigade which would have been already on its way: and we found the answer to both questions—the murderer failed to get himself out of the room by the one means and resorted to the other. And we asked ourselves the meaning of those strange phrases about “vanishing into thin air” and “the long arms”—and we know now that they were only dragged in to confuse the issue. And we asked ourselves why your uncle was killed in the way he was—tied up, strangled, stabbed—and we know that this also was to cause confusion: that all the details of the recent stabbing and the newly broken window and the undrawn bolts, were all to cause confusion, to suggest that he had at that moment been killed by someone inside a locked room which in fact proved empty. But we asked ourselves one question which has not yet been answered and this now becomes the crucial question—why was the policeman killed? Because when we outlined an otherwise water-tight case against Rupert, this was the point that exonerated him. Rupert had no reason to kill the policeman.’
Giles walked beside him, slowly, supporting the shuffling steps down the gentle slope. ‘You are very hot now. Burning. Because, yes, that is the crucial question. Why was the policeman killed?’
‘To avenge the murder of your Uncle Gemminy,’ said the old man. ‘What other reason could there possibly be? And that means—one of you three: you or Helen or Rupert. But you’re out of it, that we do know; and I accept that Helen also is out of it—all that was only a tarradiddle because you challenged me, you said she couldn’t have done it. So we have to come back to Rupert.’
‘And come back to the question you asked before. Why should Rupert have killed the policeman? Revenge, you say. But how could he have known that the policeman was the murderer?’
‘Because in searching for Helen,’ said the old man, ‘he simply did the obvious thing. He stopped every policeman he saw and asked if they’d seen any sign of her. And recognised the man he’d shown the note to�
�back there in the murder room.’
And he dropped Giles’ arm and turned and faced him, the big, lined face alight with triumph. ‘Now am I hot?’ he said.
And the white mist was back, brilliant and stupefying, pierced through with pain. And out of the mist, Giles heard himself answering: ‘Yes. White hot.’
Rupert—whom also she loved, though surely one might believe, surely one might even yet hang on to the knowledge: not as she had loved himself. Rupert whom their guardian had chosen to be the favoured one. In Giles’ mind now, the white light blazed: the white mist that came ever more frequently nowadays, to flood his mind with its terrible brilliance, its terrible pain. ‘Am I hot?’ asked the old man, still playing the game, the game of Hunt the Killer which suddenly was only ugly and frightening, to be covered over and, please God, forgotten—the game which, unless something were said now, firmly and finally to bring it to an end, would never be covered over, never forgotten—never forgotten by this heavy old man with his cruel, sadistic mind, playing over old agonies like a cat with a mouse. And so: ‘Am I hot?’ he said; and ‘White hot,’ Giles answered conceding victory. ‘The end of the game.’
‘Yes,’ said the old man. ‘The end of the game. And the beginning of reality.’ And he hooked a veined old hand into the trembling arm and started the long stroll in towards a nice hot cup of tea. ‘I told you I’d heard many murder confessions,’ he said. ‘Now tell me yours.’
No answer: only the terrible trembling, the terrible, uncontrollable shaking of the arm he held, of the whole suddenly sick and shambling body. He prompted: ‘The policeman first—for perhaps the oddest reason ever known for killing a policeman: that you wanted to borrow his uniform. Knowing in advance what your Uncle Gemminy was going to say—’
Knowing in advance what Uncle Gemminy was going to say: because you remembered that night, you knew all about that long ago night—that you had within you the seed passed down through the generations, the terrible seed. The hot white light which, off and on, had visited him since that hideous night of his childhood, had taken possession of Giles’ whole mind now: brilliant, dazzling—confusing yet clarifying, muffling all emotion, intensifying thought… One thought paramount: that Helen would be lost to him, that as always Rupert would win, that she would turn from him, back to Rupert whom also she had always loved…
The plan emerging: long thought-out, elaborate, nursed to perfection, a wish, a dream, a game, growing insensibly into a reality of purpose, springing into action because it must be now, today, this moment, if ever it was to be set going at all. Kill a policeman—no, don’t kill him immediately, he must not seem to have died until after his uniform has been used and returned to him. Tie him up then—choose a man who knows you well (that young chap that’s been making sheep’s eyes at Helen recently—he’ll do; and serve him right!)—and, knowing you, will trustingly come with you into the derelict building if you tell him some story of strange goings-on there: who’ll trustingly turn his back. Wearing his uniform, get to the office—World Cup day, not a soul about; and anyway, who notices a uniformed copper going about his every-day duties? Kill Uncle Gemminy, silence him for ever—he who alone knows the seed of madness you carry within you, he who alone knows that you should never marry, never bring tainted children into the world… Tie him to his chair: for good reasons you must tie up the policeman and also stab him—an ‘uncanny’ resemblance between the two murders will confuse the issue; and you can throw in a few strange references when you make your necessary telephone calls, cast over it all an air of netherworld horror.
Ring Rupert, ask him to come quickly; you well know Uncle Gem’s mannerisms and for the rest, pretended alarm will disguise your voice. Ten minutes now, before he—hurrying—will arrive. Break the window, keep back a piece of the glass. Set fire to the desk. A moment before Rupert is due, ring over to the police station with wild talk of a mysterious attack, so urgent as to bring them all tearing across: you know their habits, you have watched them from your window, often enough, snatching up their helmets, tumbling over one another to answer a hurry-call; and there must be several of them, that is the essence of your plot. Now the desk is well alight, the room filling with smoke, the doors bolted. As Rupert’s fist begins to pound, inflict the stab wound, observe the satisfactory trickle of blood, showing how recently the wound was made. Take out the knife, wrap it in the plastic sheet you have brought for the purpose and button the whole tight inside your uniform jacket. If Uncle Gemminy’s blood is on the uniform, the fact that this same knife was used to kill the policeman will account for it; no one must catch the smallest glimpse of the fact that that uniform was in the office at the time Uncle Gem was killed.
Move back to the door, stand to one side and wait. They break in the panels at last, stand back a moment for the final onslaught—and in that moment you fling the piece of glass you have preserved from the broken pane. You are lucky in actually hitting the remaining glass and setting it vibrating; but all that you really needed was the sound, the sound of someone smashing that hole in the window and diving out ‘into thin air’.
And the door gives, opening back against you as you stand flattened against the wall; and as the men surge forward, you surge forward with them. In that smoke-filled room, filled with blue uniforms—who will observe that one blue uniform came, not through the door but from behind it…
Rupert is there with them, of course, and now you have a little extra bit of luck to add to that alibi about having seen him leave the flat. You have noted where his car was parked, of course, and for the rest you could deduce that he’d rush out in a hurry—you’ve arranged for that by the telephone call and you know your Rupert; (his being early made no difference either way, of course—all you wanted was to be able to pretend this alibi for yourself, to describe Rupert rushing out, to know pretty exactly at what time that would happen; and it had the added advantage of your knowing just how long it would be before he arrived.) And now you observe that he can’t even have stopped to put on his macintosh. As you stand with your handkerchief up to your face, against the smoke and the heat, he comes up close to you, he shows you the note about Helen, and you are able to see that the shoulders of his light jacket are soaked through. (You must look round the flat and just see that he did take the mac. even if he didn’t wait to put it on.) Meanwhile, he’s reacting to the note as you knew he would—rushing off to look for Helen without stopping for a moment’s thought. The sergeant won’t let you follow him, as you’d rather hoped; so you shout out something not too specific about the fire brigade and, not waiting for consent or refusal, dash off, flinging a word to the man on duty at the top of the stairs. And from then on—a uniformed bobby, hurrying about some professional duty—slowing down as you get clear of the building, just a man strolling his beat. Back to the derelict factory, get the constable back into his uniform—easier when he’s alive than if he were, literally, a dead weight. Finish him off, heave him into the water tank: the longer they take to find him, the harder to deduce the time of death, and immersion in the water of course will further confuse it. The old man’s blood on the knife will account, as you’ve planned, for any on the uniform.
Twenty minutes later, you are coming up to the heath, scorching hell for leather along the empty roads. You had intended to knock up the pub people, ask them for change for the public telephone outside; but through the window you can see them all crowded round the television set watching the World Cup final; and what more natural than to tap on the pane—you know them quite well—and make questioning faces, sketch a query mark on the pane: clasp hands in mock prayer as they signal back, ‘All square; extra time,’ and turn back to huddle over the set again.
Helen safely out of the way, of course; you told her to meet you at the Dell. So you can go to the call box, make the legitimate call to the house to ask if she’s there; and then…
Five o’clock; and the policeman has been dead for half an hour and more—yet here is his voice asking for ‘George’
—you know well enough that George is on the switchboard today—giving his nickname, all the little authenticities… Breaking off with vague alarms, coming back to scream out in gibbering fear that he’s being attacked… P.C. Cross: alive and speaking on the telephone at five o’clock when you are known to be fifteen miles away from the scene of his death.
He had reckoned on suspicion fastening, possibly, upon Rupert; but Helen—that had been horrible… The white light had grown more and more frightening then, blazing day and night inside his mind with a dazzling confusion as when one looks into the eye of the sun and sees only blackness. But this had been a whiteness, infinitely more terrible—a pain-filled, terror-filled radiance that blotted out all but the pain and the terror of the ensuing days. They had been very kind; considering what had happened, they had all been kind. They’d told him that he should not die nor even go to prison, but to a place where he might hide himself from the light inside his head. He’d been afraid of that, afraid of the truths that would face him when he was no longer blinded by the light. But they’d said that he hadn’t been—what they called ‘responsible’; because of that heredity, because of that very thing that Uncle Gemminy had been going to speak about—because of that long ago day when he had fled, a small boy, shrieking with mortal fear, away from Grandad, standing suddenly in the doorway carrying the great hatchet and stained down his front and all over his hands, with blood…
The gardeners had left the flower-beds and now at a discreet distance followed them; keeping a wary eye also—no point in humiliating and antagonising them, the trick psychs. said nowadays—upon other couples, other little groups all strolling in towards the big, barred buildings ahead; jingling the heavy keys, herding in their charges, sheep-like, to the grazing grounds. The old man stood aside, courteously, to usher the new-comer through the huge door with its wire-netted, splinter-proof glass. ‘Well, thank you, I enjoyed that. Someday I’ll tell you about my murder. Killed off my whole family one night, you know, with an axe. Not my fault; my father was mad before me, as mad as a hatter. And it’s years ago now; my goodness, yes!—when that happened, you’ll have been no more than a child.’
What Dread Hand? Page 22