“What’s all this?” demanded the owner of the massive chest.
The speaker was a constable. Ted’s luck was dead out.
“A spoon collector, I imagine,” panted the pursuer. “I chased him when I saw him leaving a house in rather a hurry.”
“’Urry? My Gawd!” choked Ted.
“Perhaps hurry is not the right word,” admitted the pursuer. “He left the house as if he had been fired out of it from a cannon.”
“Oh, did he?” said the constable. “What house?”
“Some way back along the road. I just came off my boat in time for the fun—hey! Watch him!”
For the victim had begun to screech with laughter. That word “fun” had crashed into his solar plexus.
Chapter II
Boredom Ends in Benwick
“Dull times, sergeant,” yawned Detective-Inspector Kendall. “Damn dull times.”
“That’s how I like ’em, sir.” answered Sergeant Wade.
“Yes, theoretically that’s how we all ought to like ’em,” agreed Kendall; “but it doesn’t make for efficiency. How can I teach you your job when nothing happens?”
The sergeant rubbed his large nose. Personally, he thought he had had enough teaching during the past week to last him a year, and he was looking forward to the visiting inspector’s departure. This gingering-up process didn’t appeal to him at all.
“There was a fire on Tooseday,” he murmured.
“Which was out before the engine got to it,” retorted Kendall. “Anyway, that wasn’t your funeral.”
“Well, I expeck something’ll happen as soon as you go.”
“Oh, inevitably. The moment I turn my back Benwick will burst into crime! Meanwhile, what’s that?”
He shoved a paper on which he had been doodling towards the edge of the desk, and the sergeant approached rather gingerly.
“Elephant,” the sergeant guessed.
“An elephant has a trunk,” replied the inspector. “Try again.”
“Hippo.”
“No, it’s an elephant. There’s its trunk. When you’ve formed an opinion backed by conclusive evidence, Wade, stick to it.” His eyes suddenly narrowed as they travelled beyond Wade to the window. “Hallo—something happening at last?”
The sergeant did not turn at once. He thought this might be another trick, and he was still feeling a little hurt over the last one. But when sounds entered the passage he swung round and was just in time to share, with his superior, a strange sight.
A constable was carrying a small ragged man in his arms. The ragged man wore a vacuous expression, and was emitting sounds to match his face. Behind them was a light-haired young man with blue eyes and brown hair, wearing an open flannel shirt, grey shorts, no socks, and tennis shoes.
“What’s the trouble?” exclaimed the sergeant. “Drunk?”
“Dotty, more like,” answered the constable, depositing his burden in a chair. “Seems to have gone off his nut.”
“Oh! Where did you pick him up?”
“He near bowled me over before I picked him up. This fellow was chasing him.”
He jerked his head towards the young man in shorts and then produced a couple of spoons from his pocket with a significant wink.
“Ah, I see,” nodded the sergeant. “Making himself at home with other people’s property. Know where he got ’em?”
The young man in shorts stepped forward.
“I think this is where I come in,” he said. “No, they’re not my spoons. I’m just off my boat—it’s in Havenford Creek—and I was about to ask my way at a house when our spoon-collector bounced out of it.”
He had begun his explanation to the sergeant, but found himself finishing it to the inspector. The inspector, however, did not appear to be paying any attention to him. He was studying the strange crumpled creature in the chair. Ted Lyte’s uncouth noises had ceased; he had passed into a stupor.
“That chap’s had a fright,” said Kendall.
“He met a policeman,” explained the sergeant, a little too kindly.
“He’s met more than a policeman,” replied Kendall. “Hasn’t anybody got anything out of him?”
“Not yet, we haven’t, sir,” answered the constable. “When we questioned him he jest—well—laughed.”
“We did get one ‘My Gawd’ out of him,” added the young man, “and I am inclined to agree with the inspector that there was more in his emotion than met the eye.”
Now Kendall turned to the speaker and, after a swift scrutiny, asked:
“You’re off a boat, you say?”
“Auxiliary yacht. Spray.”
“Yours?”
“All of it.”
“May I have your name?”
“Thomas Hazeldean.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hazeldean. I’m Inspector Kendall. About this house. Where is it?”
The constable butted in: “From what he says, sir, it must be a house called Haven House; there’s no other near it.”
Kendall lifted the receiver of the desk telephone and called sharply, “Get me Haven House. Double quick!” Then, with the receiver still at his ear, he addressed Ted Lyte. “Ready to talk?” he inquired. “This is only a police station—our time’s yours.”
Neither the question nor the sarcasm produced any result.
“Who lives at Haven House?” asked Kendall.
“Man named Fenner,” responded Sergeant Wade, feeling he had been left out a little too long. “With his niece.”
“In residence now?”
“Ah, that I can’t say, sir.”
“They was two days ago,” said the constable. “I know, because I see Miss Fenner in the butcher’s.”
The telephone operator’s voice sounded in Kendall’s ear.
“No reply,” it called. “Their receiver’s still off.”
“Still?” queried Kendall.
“It’s been off since yesterday.”
“Oh, has it? You’ve tried the howler?”
“There’s no response.”
“What made you try it? Someone trying to get through?”
“Yes.”
“When was that?”
“I’ll find out.” Then, after a short pause: “Yesterday afternoon.”
“Do you know the time?”
“Between 4.30 and 5.”
“Was it a local call?”
“No, a London call.”
“Between half-past four and five on Friday—yesterday—someone tried to phone Haven House from London, but the receiver was off, so they couldn’t get through. You put on the howler, and no notice was taken of it. Is all that correct?”
“Quite correct.”
“Know what part of London?”
“I can find out.”
“Do. Find out all you can about that call, and keep the information by you in case I want it. Maybe I won’t. Have you put the howler on since?”
“Twice.”
“When?”
“Once last night and once this morning.”
“Without result, of course?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Right. Get me Dr. Saunders. Five-nine. Then try the howler again. If they answer, connect up at once and put them through to me the moment I’m finished with my next call. Otherwise, don’t worry me till I worry you. Right.”
While waiting, he caught the sergeant’s expression and smiled. He guessed what the sergeant was thinking. The sergeant was thinking: “Showing off before an audience!” It didn’t worry the inspector in the least.
“I hope that boat of yours isn’t in a hurry, Mr. Hazeldean,” he said.
“It’s got all the time you want,” answered the yachtsman. “I wouldn’t miss this for a farm.”
“Something to wri
te home about, eh?”
“Well—you seem to think so.”
“It was you who first suggested, Mr. Hazeldean, that there was more in this than met the eye,” Kendall reminded him, “and since then we’ve got a receiver that’s been left off, and the complete collapse of the only person here who might tell us something. Do stop prodding him, constable—that really won’t help. Are we keeping anybody waiting, Mr. Hazeldean, besides yourself?”
“Only my crew,” replied Hazeldean.
“A big one?”
“A big one and a small one. You don’t lose any time, do you, inspector? You’re finding out all about me. I like your methods.”
“Then perhaps you’ll mention them in that letter home,” said Kendall dryly. “Ah!… Dr. Saunders?”
“Speaking,” came the voice over the telephone.
“This is Kendall, police station. Can you come along right now?”
“Well, in about ten minutes.”
“I’d rather you made it five.”
“I dare say you would, but my car’s out of commission.”
“We’ll send ours.” The sergeant vanished from the room. He was learning. “You can walk to meet it, if you like,” added Kendall. “It’s a nice morning.”
“What’s the trouble?” inquired the doctor.
“I haven’t any idea,” answered Kendall, and replaced the receiver.
Then he rose from his chair and walked over to the prisoner.
Ted saw him coming through a mist. Since the original moment of horror he had passed through a succession of nightmares and a succession of mists, till at last life had become so unbearable that he had tried to assist nature and wipe himself out. That unbelievable moment, the chase to which the moment had given an added terror, the policeman, the laughter (was it his own?), and now the police station—what was there in existence worth holding on to? So he held on to nothing, and let his mind totter.
But this new policeman standing before him had a disturbing and menacing solidarity. He was like a doctor, bringing a dying patient back to pain. As the mist began clearing, Ted closed his eyes, substituting his lids for the fog. He opened them, however, when the new policeman said quietly:
“So it isn’t only theft—it’s murder, too, eh?”
For a few moments Ted stared into Inspector Kendall’s eyes, held by their steadiness. Then, the words drawn from him, he whispered:
“I didn’t do it.”
“Do what?” asked Kendall.
The ragged man began to cry.
“’Ow could I?” he whimpered. “Orl that lot?”
And then a too-rapidly-filled stomach and a too-violently-shocked mind produced their delayed result, and he was sick.
Chapter III
Horror for Four
“H’m! Passed out,” said the doctor. “You won’t get anything more from him for ten minutes!”
“We can’t wait ten minutes,” answered Kendall; “and we’ve already got quite enough from him to go on with. Stand by him, constable. Take down his statement when he comes back to earth, and see he doesn’t give you the slip. A cup of tea may help the situation. Get through to Millingham, and tell ’em to send half a dozen men to Haven House at once. Maybe I’ll just turn ’em back when they arrive, but it’s pretty scenery. Now, then, doctor! Come along, sergeant!” He turned to the yachtsman. “And what about you?”
“You know my views,” replied the yachtsman. “I’d weep if you left me out.”
“I see. You want a prize for running?”
“I think I deserve it.”
“You like this sort of thing?”
“It’s my bread-and-butter.”
The inspector shot him a swift glance. They walked as they talked.
“That’s bad news,” remarked Kendall. “I had a journalist trying to beat me on my last job.”
“Yes. Bultin,” murmured Hazeldean.
“Oh! You know that?”
“You mentioned your name. There are plenty of Kendalls in the world, but I remember one who did pretty good work recently at Bragley Court, in the case of the Thirteen Guests. What I liked about him was that he didn’t play the violin, or have a wooden leg, or anything of that sort. He just got on with it.”
“And there’s another point you may remember, if you followed the case closely,” said Kendall, with a dry smile. “He didn’t give away any presents in exchange for compliments. Are you as bad as Bultin?”
“Not nearly,” Hazeldean smiled back as they got into the waiting car. “But I’m bad.”
The car darted forward. In three minutes it had shed the little town of Benwick and reached the spot where Ted Lyte had toppled into the arms of a policeman. In another three, a narrow, twisting lane had brought the party of four to the old gate swaying on its worn hinges. “Don’t drive in!” ordered Kendall. Sergeant Wade, who was driving, pulled up sharply. The four men jumped out.
“Steady—just a moment!” came Kendall’s next order.
He wanted the moment in order to register his first impression. Once this invasion began, fresh footprints would be on the rough, untidy gravel, and new incidents would mingle with old ones, confusing clues. Those clues had already been threatened by two intruders who—apparently—had no connection with the main object of the present visit. A silver fork, gleaming incongruously from the gravel, was the first evidence of this.
Swinging gate. Wanted oiling. Letter “O” almost rubbed out from words “Haven House” on gate. Gravel circling round grass plot. Gravel untidy. Grass plot ditto. Silver fork on right side of gravel. Disturbed spot near silver fork. Somebody tumbled? Small damaged bush near disturbed gravel. Somebody tumbled. Right lower window shuttered. Front door open…
“Which way did you come?” Kendall asked Hazeldean.
“Through a wood at the back,” answered Hazeldean. “I was on that side lawn when I spotted my man—”
“Who was coming out of the house?”
“Well, that was an obvious deduction. Actually, he’d just reached this gate.”
“Right! Come along! Keep to the left and stick to the edge—and when we get in, don’t touch anything.”
“Hey! What’s that?” jerked the sergeant.
Something was happening in the house. As they darted towards it, an unearthly noise issued from the hall, and the sergeant admitted afterwards that it “fair went up his spine.” The sound grew venomously. It was like a hive of bees that had gone mad. There seemed no rhyme or reason in it, unless it had been designed as a macabre overture to what was to follow. Even Hazeldean, whose nerves were exceptionally good, felt his heart accelerating, while the doctor’s eyes became two little startled pools.
But Kendall smiled with ironic grimness as he dashed into the hall. He made for a small table on which was a telephone with the receiver off. Seizing the receiver, he bawled into it: “All right, all right—police speaking—stop that row!” He replaced the receiver, and the “howler” died away.
Then he swung round to a wide-open door. He was the first to look into the room and to see what Ted Lyte had seen. The others, their eyes on him, watched him grow rigid.
“My God!” he murmured.
“What—is it?” asked the sergeant.
“Come and see,” answered Kendall. “Some work for you, doctor. Not that you can…”
They joined him in the doorway. The drawing-room they stared into might have been a morgue. Seven dead people—the doctor knew they were dead before he examined them—were in that shuttered chamber, revealed with a cruel starkness by the unnatural artificial light. Six of the people were men and one was a woman.
The nearest figure was on its face, head towards the door, and right arm extended. It was so close that the fingers almost touched Kendall’s foot. A tall figure, with untidy dark brown hair. Across its legs, like the top
part of a capital T, was a shorter man. His hair was black, and also untidy. Near the shutters of the front window were two men who looked something like sailors. The impression was conveyed by their coarse hands—one had tattoo marks on the back—and their jerseys. Probably the jerseys had been blue once, but now they were black with grime and age. Against the other shuttered window—the french window in the wall opposite the door—was an old, grey-haired man. He had a bald spot on top, and that also was grey. The sixth man was on a couch. His mouth was open, and one leg dangled. He might have been asleep, but for the grim implication of his silent companions. He looked the youngest of the company, though like the rest he was unshaven.
The woman was in a chair, her head resting against a blue cushion. It would have been easy at first glance to mistake her sex, for she was wearing a man’s clothing—jersey, trousers and heavy boots—while her features, framed in short dark hair, were coarsened by exposure. She might have been attractive once. She was not attractive now. Her unseeing eyes were open…
Doctor Saunders ran forward.
“Be very careful, please,” said Kendall, quietly. “I’ll want photographs.”
The doctor nodded as he bent over the first victim.
“Go over the house, sergeant, every inch of it,” continued Kendall, “and report anything important you find the instant you find it.”
The sergeant vanished with alacrity. Kendall turned to Hazeldean.
“Well, you’re getting your scoop,” he remarked. “Come round the room with me, but don’t touch.”
“Wouldn’t I be more useful if I finished this floor while the sergeant does the top?” suggested Hazeldean.
“If you want to be useful, of course you would,” answered Kendall. “Carry on.”
The doctor, working rapidly, looked up as Hazeldean left the room after the sergeant.
“Stone dead,” said the doctor.
“You’re telling me,” replied Kendall. “What I want to know is how he died.”
Seven Dead Page 2