by Bruce, Leo
“What’s violent about a microphone? Can you or can’t you fix it up? ”
“I can. But I don’t like the sound of it. I don’t trust you in this neck-or-nothing mood.”
“It’s a very mild neck-or-nothing,” said Carolus when they were out of the house. “We’ll buy the things we want here in Newminster. Can you tell me exactly what’s necessary? ”
“Yes. You’ve got a spare car battery, haven’t you? What distance will the mike be from the amplifier? ”
“Say twenty yards.”
“And where will the amplifier be? ”
“Say in a tree.”
“I begin to understand. The game-keeper’s cottage? “Carolus nodded.
“That’ll be easy.”
Their purchases made, they went to a large outfitters’ shop, where Carolus was greeted with something like rapture by the manager.
“A perfect fit if I may say so, sir. And the pattern is the last word in chic. Perhaps your friend would like something similar? ”
“God forbid,” said Priggley. “I’ve had misery enough walking down the High Street beside this one. Every dog in the place started barking.”
“Ah, fond of your little joke, I see,” said the manager unsmiling, turning to Carolus. “What can we do for you today, sir? ”
“I want the dummy in the window. The seated one.”
The manager laughed, loudly but not heartily.
“Ah, there you are! “he said. “I could see when you came in last night you liked your joke. The dummy in the window! Very funny indeed, sir.”
“I don’t mind whether I borrow, hire or buy the thing. But I want that particular one.”
“Oh dear, oh dear! You mustn’t make me laugh so, sir.”
“I’m serious,” said Carolus.
The manager suddenly sobered.
“You mean?”
“I mean I need that dummy for a day or two.”
“If you are serious, sir, I fear I must refuse. It would be as much as my job’s worth. Each branch is only allowed the four dummies. What happens if one of the directors comes down and sees it missing? I shouldn’t know what to say.”
“Say it fell in love with one of the female dummies in the dress-shop next door,” suggested Priggley, “and that they’re living together in sin.”
The manager remained solemn.
“It would never do,” he murmured.
“Only three days,” said Carolus.
“No, no, sir …”
“It would be worth a fiver to me,” said Carolus, in a low voice. “After all, you could say it was being repaired.”
“It would cost more like a tenner to repair,” said the manager quickly.
“A tenner, then.”
“When would you want it? ”
“Now,” said Carolus.
“That means changing it.”
“Well?”
“I should have to ask Mr Winkley to do that. I don’t think it’s very nice to expect the young lady who does the window to do it.”
“Why not?”
“It has to be Undressed, you see,” said the manager.
“But surely it isn’t … it hasn’t got …”
“Oh, no, sir. Certainly not. But I feel it’s nicer for a man to do it, Mr Winkley! ”
It was half an hour before Carolus and Priggley carried a very odd-looking package from the shop. Armed with this and the purchases already made they drove out of New-minster.
“But I want to get to Flogmore without going through Maresfield,” said Carolus. “It means a detour of more than twenty miles, but it can’t be helped.”
When they entered the cottage they found it in some confusion.
“Looks as though the Law have done their job,” said Priggley. “I’d like to have seen them at work—fingerprints and all.”
“Don’t gibe at finger-prints,” said Carolus, “we’re going to depend on them ourselves.”
“Sunk to that, have you? You’ll be buying a microscope next. Where do you want the amplifier? ”
“Fairly high up in one of those trees in front of the house.”
“You seem pretty sure the fly will walk into the parlour.”
“Yes, I’m pretty sure.”
“But how do you know what route it will take? It might come from behind the house.”
“I don’t think so. Only a few people know that route. Besides, the windows all look out to the front.”
“Yes. There’s that. What about the big chestnut tree? ”
“It’ll do. Now I’m going to leave you here to do the job. I want the mike in that upstairs room on the right. And don’t be seen if you can help it. You’d hear a car from some distance so watch out for anyone on foot. If you are disturbed try to lock the cottage and get out of the way.”
“Good. How long will you be? ”
“Some time. I’m so pleased with this suit that I want it to be seen by almost everyone in Maresfield.”
“Once seen, never forgotten.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“It’s the most disgusting exhibitionism, but I suppose you’ve got some reason for it.”
“I have.”
As he hoped, Mrs Redlove was in wait for him at the end of the cart-track.
“I didn’t much care for that picture you put in,” she said, “and there wasn’t only a little about what I said.”
“I thought it was good,” said Carolus.
“I’ve thought of a bit more I never told you. You write this down.’ Mrs Redlove says dead woman lived in terror.’”
“But did she? ”
“From what I can hear she didn’t like being in that house alone after her husband died.”
“Has anyone been up there lately? ”
“Not since Friday they haven’t. It was Friday they came to see me. You should have seen the pictures they took! I don’t know why they haven’t come out in the papers. There was one of Arthur and Margaret that must have been sweetly pretty, and one ever so good of my husband, I’m sure, because he had his blue serge on. But there you are. It’s all about that Lady Drumbone. I suppose it’s being a ‘Lady’. I’ve never set eyes on her, anyway, so I don’t believe she had much to do with it. You could put that in. ‘Mrs Redlove of Brook Cottage, Flogmore, says Lady Drumbone a stranger’.”
“You’re sure no car has been up to the game-keeper’s cottage since Friday? ”
“Of course I’m sure. After what’s happened I’m not missing anything, I can tell you. I saw you go in half an hour ago and that’s all there has been.”
“I shall be back later.”
“Then I’ll see if I can remember anything. There’s that prize Margaret won last year. She could be holding it in her hand. Mrs Redlove’s prize-winning daughter remembers killer’s victim.’”
“Charming,” said Carolus and escaped.
It was fairly late in the afternoon when Carolus returned, having finished his piece of ‘disgusting exhibitionism’. When he reached the cottage he carefully turned the car so that its nose pointed towards the track. He had brought a supply of food and drink, and Priggley set on this ravenously, not having eaten since breakfast.
“I’ve cleared the place up a bit,” he told Carolus between mouthfuls. “I don’t suppose you will want to sleep and don’t find the bed very inviting, but I’ve put a couple of comfortable chairs in the room where the mike is. That’s fixed, too, and I’ve tested it for sound.”
“Good. No one been around? ”
“No one at all.”
“I’m going to change,” said Carolus.
“I should imagine you’d be relieved. Though do you know I’m getting rather to like that chessboard you’re wearing? ”
“I’m glad. I wanted it to be glaring but not funny.”
“Fair enough.”
“There’s nothing very funny about this thing, really. Even the purpose this suit is to serve is not hilarious.”
“In fact, I had gathered
that. It’s your intention to trap a murderer, no less? ”
“And a particularly nasty one.”
“I shall watch it with interest.”
“If you are going to stay here tonight it will be on one condition. You will give me your word that in no circumstances, in no circumstances at all, you understand, will you leave the small bedroom. It looks from the front of the house, so if there is anything to see you will see it. But I must have your word of honour that you will not leave that room.”
“Drama? “asked Priggley.
“Possibly.”
“It’s about time. All right, I promise. Are you sure there will be fun and games tonight? ”
“No. It may be tomorrow. Or just possibly the next night. But I think tonight.”
“How can you be so sure that he …”
“Or she.”
“I don’t take that seriously in a strangling case. Anyway I shall say ‘he’. How can you be so sure hell walk into a carefully prepared trap? ”
“I know this murderer.”
“Why not get out that mantrap from the shed and set it? ”
“No need. This is just as sure. It was that unpleasant-looking piece of mechanism which gave me the idea, however.”
“Don’t say you’re going to make an arrest? ”
“Oh, no. I should have no authority to do that.”
“Anyway, since you’re determined to be so damned mysterious let me get what I can straight. In the language of the kind of books I fear you must have been reading, we ‘keep vigil’ tonight? ”
“We do.”
“And the murderer will approach? ”
“Yes. Almost certainly.”
“On which we grab him? ”
“No. You remain in that room.”
“You grab him then? ”
“No.”
“What’s the idea of it all, in that case? ”
“Identification,” said Carolus.
“I suppose I shall have to be satisfied with that. What about our dummy? ”
“When I’ve changed you can dress it. Unless you think that wouldn’t be very nice.”
“In the chessboard? ”
“Exactly.”
“Where does he sit? ”
“In the room downstairs.”
“With a light? ”
“Of course.”
“I begin to see. I rather like it.”
“Thank you, Priggley. I was afraid you would find it, in your favourite word, corny.”
“It is, of course, but it has that childish ingenuity about it which will probably work.”
When the dummy was dressed in the loud suit Carolus had been wearing all day and placed with its back almost but not quite square to the open window, a book open before it and a paraffin lamp lit—though it was scarcely dusk—it presented from outside a curiously realistic spectacle.
“Hair a bit too blond for you,” said Priggley. “We must get a shadow across it. Otherwise it really is indistinguishable from here.”
“Let’s walk up the track to the point from which one first sees the cottage.”
They did so. From there the illusion was complete.
“That’s it then,” said Carolus. “We take up our positions.”
They went to the upstairs room of the cottage.
“Make yourself comfortable. We may have hours to wait. No light—not even a cigarette. We shall probably hear a car engine first, but that’s by no means certain.”
“The weakness of the whole thing seems to be this,” said Priggley, “that he will scarcely believe you could be so idiotic as to sit there making a target for him.”
“People believe their own eyes. A few minutes later they may realize that they have been fooled, but the first instant reaction is what counts.”
“Yes. I see that. But we shan’t be able to see him. It’s a dark night.”
“We don’t need to see.”
“I give it up.”
“That’s best. From now on talk quietly. Back and front doors bolted? ”
“Yes.”
“All windows shut? ”
“Yes.”
Their ‘vigil’ began. After what seemed a considerable time, Priggley said:
“He does know you’re here? ”
“Oh, yes.”
“And he knows you know who he is? ”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Then how can you possibly be so sure he’ll come? What motive can he have? ”
“Desperation.”
“You mean—to plead? ”
“Oh, no.”
“To kill, then?”
“Of course.”
“It’s fantastic. There are a thousand things against it.”
“What, for instance? ”
“How does he know that you’re the only person to know his identity? ”
“But I am.”
“Then he has got to be absent during the time it takes him to come here. He could surely be traced through that? ”
“This murderer is an expert at alibis. Besides—all right, we’ll call him ‘he’, if you like—the fact that he comes here tonight need not implicate him at all. He might be coming out of anxiety for me. Even when he has killed me he has only got to say he found me dead. Report it at once. Heard I was coming here, came out to help and found me dead. That might be accepted from any respectable person.”
“Is he respectable? ”
“Very.”
“I see what you mean. It does begin to look more promising. But suppose you had told someone, me for instance, who it was. Even though he succeeded in killing you it wouldn’t have served much purpose.”
“Every purpose. Because I haven’t a scrap of concrete proof. The only proof will be given tonight. All my evidence is circumstantial. If he killed me and got away with my murder he would never be charged at all. He knows that. His choice is a simple one. To kill me and be safe on the one hand or to let me live and hang on the other.”
“But surely, sir,” whispered Priggley excitedly, “he must know you wouldn’t stay here without taking precautions? That’s the crux of the whole thing. He knows you’re expecting him, he knows you know he means to kill you. He can’t think you’re so stupid as to be here without protection? ”
“No,” said Carolus. “But he is pretty sure he can defeat my precautions. You see, he has the means to do so. Think that one out.”
The most nerve-racking thing about that wait was the darkness. There was silence, too, except for an owl, for it was a still and heavy night. But the darkness was hostile. From their window they could just see the vague shape of the chestnut tree in which was the amplifier, but nothing of the track. It would be possible for anyone to reach the windows beneath them without being seen.
“Have you got a gun? “asked Rupert presently.
“Yes, but if I have to use it the whole thing will have failed. The only charge would be one against me. What’s the time? ”
“Eleven-thirty. I’m enjoying this. This is good. Why can’t you do this more often? ”
When interruption came it was ear-splitting. There were several phases all within a single second. There was an explosion and a shattering of glass below them, then a thud within the house.
Very coolly Carolus spoke into the microphone.
“Drop that gun, you fool! You are being covered from three points.” The words blared out in the night with an eerie sound like someone shouting into a cave.
Carolus motioned Priggley to stay where he was and opening the window peered out.
“Now listen,” he commanded.
It seemed a long time before they heard anything. When it came it was faint but clearly distinguishable. A car on the road was started up and driven away at speed.
“You’ve let him go! “said Priggley.
But there was no time to answer. Smoke was rising from the staircase.
“God! The lamp! Out of here,” shouted Carolus. “No, not down the stairs. Where�
�s that window? ”
Priggley opened the window by which he had entered the cottage three days earlier and they clambered out. The cottage was fairly alight.
“With that thatch it won’t last half an hour. Come on, we’ve got to find that gun.”
“Oughtn’t we …”
“Hell, nothing matters but that.”
“The car far enough away? “asked Priggley.
“Yes. Find the gun. Before anyone comes. Find it. It’s the only thing of any importance.”
But it was not hard to find. It lay in the centre of the path, at the very point they had discovered that afternoon from which the cottage came into sight.
“Must have dropped it like a hot brick. That loudspeaker would have shaken anyone, overhead, suddenly like that.”
Using his handkerchief Carolus gingerly lifted the gun, a Savage 30.30, and returned to his car.
The cottage blazed furiously.
“I like a fire as much as anyone, but there’s no time for that.”
“Where to? “asked Priggley.
“The home of the CID man in charge.”
“It’s one-thirty.”
“Couldn’t care less. He’s got to take the finger-prints on this. What do you think it was all for—dummy, loudspeaker, the lot? Surely you realized? A set of finger-prints which will hang a murderer. A little concrete proof at last. I told you I wanted identification. And you talked about letting him get away.”
19
MRS STICK was evidently beyond speech next morning, and silently handed Carolus the headmaster’s telegram.
“I thought so,” said Carolus to Priggley as he read it. “But he certainly doesn’t waste words. Outraged Meet Norfolk Hotel Maresfield 10 a.m. tomorrow Gor-ringer. It’s past ten now so we shall find him tearing his hair.”
Carolus, however, finished his coffee and smilingly told Mrs Stick that he would not be in to lunch. Her lips remained firmly shut.
Rupert Priggley knew better than to ask questions at this point. He had watched while Carolus continued for ten minutes to ring at the door of Detective Inspector Bowler’s house at two o’clock that morning, and had heard the brief summary Carolus gave him as he handed over the gun.
“I shall require a full statement from you,” said Bowler severely, and Carolus had promised it, also choosing the Norfolk as a meeting place this morning.