Hunt in the Dark

by Q. Patrick

  Cobb’s blue eyes had brightened. Now they clouded over again. “Even so it was a risk—an awful risk. Strikes me Mrs. Salt must have been devilishly clever to figure all this out. I can’t see her leaving damning evidence like a body in someone else’s chimney. It doesn’t—”

  “Wait a minute.” A sudden thought had struck me. “That tempting offer Mrs. Bellman was always talking about! That offer Jo said came from a woman through an agent. Don’t you see? That woman must have been Mrs. Salt. Her plan was to buy the house, and then perhaps, a neat little piece of arson would have made her secret safe forever. That’s why she paid the rent three months after she left. By the time those three months were up, she must, have hoped to own the place. Of course, it would have been safer to buy a house before she killed Agnes, but she couldn’t. She didn’t have the money then. She had to wait till Agnes’s fifteenth birthday.”

  “Good for you, Westlake.” Cobb was smiling now. “I’m beginning to see some of the little difficulties Mrs. Salt found herself up against. She planned to buy the house and then discovered Mrs. Bellman wouldn’t sell. That’s why Mrs. Salt had to start changing flowers and pictures, moving furniture around. She was trying to scare the landlady into thinking she was slipping, trying to scare her into accepting the offer.”

  “And not only that!” I exclaimed. “She must have learned that the worst possible thing was happening—that Mrs. Bellman had decided to open up the fireplace, ironically enough as a surprise for Mrs. Salt on her return. That must have made Mrs. Salt desperate, and she doubled speed on her attempts to scare the landlady. She even took the risk of buying a canary and some goldfish—just to make things more terrifying.”

  I paused to light a cigarette “Possibly there was another reason for those grim little jokes of hers—a reason far subtler, far more cunning. You remember Mrs. Salt always tried to change her little tableaux back to normal again so that Mrs. Bellman began to think they had never existed except in her own imagination. Well, I think Mrs. Salt did that on purpose, did it to make the landlady disbelieve her own eyes so that one day, if she came across something that was even more horrible, more unlikely, something, for example, like Agnes’s dead body, she would not believe she had seen it.”

  Cobb glanced up quickly. It was the small points like that which he appreciated particularly.

  “And her troubles didn’t end there,” he said. “When she was fighting with her back to the wall, you came along and rented this very apartment.” He smiled grimly. “That must have been, the last straw. In desperation, she makes the final and most horrible gesture. She strangles the cat with red ribbon and hangs it outside Mrs. Bellman’s door. Then when you’re out of the room, she brings it in here. Now she’s not only got the landlady to scare—she’s got you, too.”

  “Yes,” I said, sending a spiral of smoke to the ceiling. “I’m getting quite sorry for Mrs. Salt. She certainly has her problems. I can imagine how she felt when she found that cat wasn’t going to frighten me out. I can see—Yes, of course—” I glanced up. “I’m beginning to understand the woman on the roof now. Mrs. Salt had made the big decision. She couldn’t leave Agnes in the chimney any longer. Very well, she would pull her out and hide her somewhere else. She gets one of Mrs. Bellman’s laundry bags—”

  “And you arrive on the scene again,” put in Cobb, “and scare her away.”

  Neither of us spoke. I leaned back in my chair, thinking of Mrs. Salt—thinking of that strange, desperate woman who even now must be sitting in her bedroom like all the other boarders at No. 12. I could think of her working feverishly to save the plan against which it seemed, all the forces of fate were scheming. For her, these must have been days of dread, days of mental agony. And this night, I reflected, this must be the worst of all for her, waiting, watching, wondering what was happening here in the room which had once been the safe hiding place of her guilt.

  “Try to think of her state of mind,” I said, “after she has been chased off the roof. There is one more hope for her—and only one. If she could get into my room, she might be able to draw the body down from the inside. She takes the chance of putting through a fake call to me and gets me out of the way.” I inhaled deeply. “At first, the plan worked. But she counted without Mrs. Bellman’s efficiency. When she comes into my room, she finds the landlady there, doing the worst of all possible things— lighting a fire.”

  Cobb nodded. “She had to act quickly. She picked up something—a log, a candlestick, perhaps—and hit Mr. Bellman on the head from behind. But, wait a minute, how about that expression of fright of the landlady’s face?”

  “Yes,” I said slowly, “that’s the real reason why Mrs. Salt knew she had to kill her. Mrs. Bellman’s face was covered with soot. There was an expression of horror on it. That was because the chimney had started to smoke and she had looked far up it— looked up and actually seen or smelled something.”

  I broke off glancing instinctively at the charred fragments of log which still lay half buried in soot in the grate.

  “Well,” said Cobb, “that ends the story of Mrs. Salt. We’ve figured out everything she thought, every move she made, every move she intended to make, but were still as far away as ever from the most important point. Which of these women at No. 12 is Mrs. Salt?”

  “Yes, which of them?” I leaned back, reviewing in my mind all the strange people who, during the past two days, had been so close to me. Suddenly, I sat up and glanced swiftly at Cobb. “I’ve got an idea,” I said. “An idea which, with any luck, ought to put the handcuffs on Mrs. Salt before morning.”

  “And now—” Cobb smiled skeptically “—I’ll tell one.”

  “But I’m serious. Listen, get one of your men and let me talk to him. Leave this to me.”

  “O.K. I’ll bite.”

  Cobb shouted, and a man entered almost immediately. He glanced at us inquiringly.

  “Doctor Westlake will tell you what we want,” Cobb grunted. “Yes,” I said, “we want you to go around to all the boarders and tell them that the police are leaving and that they can go to bed because they won’t be needed any more tonight. You can also tell them to keep their windows closed tomorrow morning because a man is coming early to sweep this chimney. We don’t want their things to get covered in soot.”

  I repeated this until the man had gotten it word perfect. “Don’t forget,” I said, “let them know the police are leaving.”

  I turned to Cobb. “By the way, why don’t you send them away now? There’s nothing to stay for.”

  Cobb looked a trifle embarrassed, but after a moment he nodded. “O.K., Bill. When you’re through with that, tell the boys to quit. We’ll start in again early tomorrow morning.”

  When the man had gone, Cobb turned to me. “I sincerely hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “Sure,” I said. “The first thing is for me to get some clothes on. Then you and I are going to spend a pleasant few hours together halfway up the stairs to the roof garden.”

  “And why do we do that?”

  I rose. “Haven’t you guessed? No one in this house but Constance Furnivall knows we’ve found Agnes. Bill will tell them all that the police have gone. He’ll tell them all that we’re starting work on the chimney tomorrow. If I understand anything about Mrs. Salt, she’ll realize this is her last chance. Yesterday she tried to pull Agnes up from the roof but I interrupted her. Well, unless I’m very much mistaken, she’ll try again tonight. But she won’t find Agnes. She’ll find you and me.”

  IX

  THE DARK SILHOUETTE

  A few minutes later Bill came in to report that everything was ready and the men were about to leave. I heard his heavy footsteps descending the stairs. Outside I heard the police car start and move away. Then there was silence, except for the faint striking of a clock downstairs. The dark blanket of midnight had fallen upon No. 12 and all the ghastly happenings of that

  evening.

  But for Cobb and me, wo
rk was by no means over. We switched out all the lights in my rooms and took up our position halfway up the staircase which led to Agnes Salt’s roof garden. Above us we could still hear the steady patter of the rain. It was a cheerless night. I sniffed again and again at my benzedrine inhaler in the hope of warding off the cold that was beginning to invade my system.

  Neither of us spoke. Our ears were strained for the least sound from that roof. Once Cobb pulled out his revolver and peered at it in the darkness. The barrel gleamed faintly, reminding me forcibly of our strange purpose.

  How long we waited, I do not remember, but I know it was long enough for me to reach the conclusion that this plan was harebrained and would never work. “A watched pot—” I told myself. “A watched pot—”

  I remember Mrs. Bellman’s clock downstairs chiming twice. I remember the rain slackening and then rushing headlong down again like myriad tiny feet on the roof above us. I think I must eventually have slipped off into a light doze, but I never lost consciousness, for even now I can feel the rough brick of the wall against my back and smell that vague, musty odor which still permeated the rank air of that small staircase. Visions of Agnes Salt slipped through my mind—visions of Agnes as she must have been when she was brought up these steps, visions of her as I had just seen her, hunched in the grate in that room below us. A poor crazy monster!

  Suddenly I felt Cobb’s grip on my arm.

  “Don’t even breathe,” he hissed. “Something is beginning to happen.”

  I shook myself like a dog and listened. By now the rhythm of the rain had beaten itself into my subconscious mind. Instinctively I could pick from it any alien sound, however slight.

  Somewhere a long way off, a victrola was being played. I could feel rather than hear the sharp, syncopated beat. It reminded me with strange vividness that tonight was Saturday, and that all around me there were people enjoying themselves, dancing, laughing.

  Cobb’s fingers were warm through my coat. This time I heard it, too. Distinct from the throb of the music, distinct from the swish of the rain, was another sound—the slow, stealthy sound of footsteps. They paused, moved forward, paused again. Once there was a slight clatter as though a heel had knocked against a tile.

  It was the thought of that heel rather than anything else that brought home to me the grim reality of the situation. Mrs. Salt actually was there on the roof above us. The plan was working. The woman who had so unscrupulously taken two lives was walking into the trap.

  “Come on.”

  Cobb’s voice was so low that, even though he spoke in my ear, I could scarcely catch it.

  “You go first,” he was whispering. “You know the geography of the place.”

  I felt the cold steel of the revolver as he slipped it into my hand.

  Slowly I began to move upward. The footsteps had stopped. There was no time to lose. Mrs. Salt must have reached the chimney. Soon now she would realize that the body had gone.

  The chill impact of the rain came as quite a shock to me when eventually I reached the last stair and slipped noiselessly into the deep shadow by the railings which surrounded the roof garden. Cobb’s progress behind had been so silent that I was not sure he was following until I felt his hand touch mine. It pressed against my fingers. I could tell that he was asking for the revolver. I loosened my grip and felt the gun withdrawn.

  A few yards to our right, looming jet black against the deep blue of the night sky, rose the silhouette of a chimney. I realized instantly that it was the one by which I had found the laundry bag the night before. I realized, too, that it was the chimney connected with the fireplace in my apartment. It was squat and wide. There had been plenty of room, I reflected grimly, for the small, misshapen body of Agnes Salt to have been suspended there.

  I do not know what exactly I had expected to see. But when I saw it, I found myself frozen to the ground, completely caught up in the eerie, horrible atmosphere of that scene.

  Across the way, the victrola burst out suddenly in a crazy, syncopated rhythm. Someone down in the street laughed. A car rattled by, and the rain swished as a gust of wind sent it skimming across the tiles. Then, as we crouched there, watching, the outline of the chimney’s mouth blurred. Gradually something moved above it—something which slowly formed itself into the silhouette of a woman’s head.

  I must have moved, for suddenly I felt Cobb’s grip again on my arm. We pressed more deeply into the shadow as the head moved upward, revealing shoulders and the upper part of the arms. I could see the outline of the hat clearly. There was something essentially feminine about it which made the scene infinitely more ghastly.

  Mrs. Salt was in the very act of searching for the body of her stepdaughter.

  I do not know how long Cobb and I stood there, watching, but in my mind it seems as though hours slipped by. My eyes were more accustomed to the darkness then, and I could see little movements which earlier would have been invisible. Naturally, it was impossible to recognize any individual feature of that dark, female form, but I saw an arm lifted and plunged down the chimney. I saw it groping slowly from side to side—groping. I knew, for the rope which she had hung there, the rope which had been tied so tightly around Agnes’s neck.

  The victrola stopped suddenly. There was a sputter of talk and laughter. The wind sighed. Then I saw the arm pause. It had found the rope and was clutching it.

  Cobb’s revolver flicked upward. From the corner of my eye, I saw it flash suddenly, but I was staring forward, staring at that form as it prepared to pull.

  The shoulders hunched. There was one moment of deathly immobility. Then the figure jerked backward, and I caught the outline of a short length of rope as it fell loosely over the mouth of the chimney.

  Even then, in that instant of tense excitement, I could imagine what was passing through the mind of Mrs. Salt. I could imagine the horror, the gradual realization that the body had been discovered, that even now the police must be working on the murder of Agnes Salt as certainly as they were on that of Eva Bellman.

  The woman stood there motionless. Once again, I saw Cobb’s revolver gleam. Then his voice rang loud and sharp across the wet tiles.

  “Hands up, Mrs. Salt! I’ve got you covered!”

  For a second, the silhouette did not move. Then with a swift motion it disappeared. Cobb sprang forward and ran along the high railings of the roof garden. I jumped up and followed. As I did so, he shouted:

  “Look out!”

  Instinctively I ducked, and a tile crashed on the roof at my feet, splitting into fragments. As I crouched there, a second tile hurtled through the air—and then a third.

  Cobb had started to scale the railings now. I moved to his side. Ahead of us, threading her way through the stacks of chimneys, I caught a glimpse of the woman. I saw her stumble, throw out a hand to support herself and then dash on. Her skirt blew out, black against the sky.

  I shall never know how Cobb and I climbed those railings, but we seemed to be over in a split second. I vaguely remember a ripping sound as the sleeve of my coat caught against one of the spikes. There was a sharp tingling on my arm where the skin had been grazed.

  Cobb was ahead of me, scrambling along the sloping tiles, clutching firmly to the side of the chimney. I followed, bent double, my breath coming in short spurts. Then, I saw the woman again—hardly ten yards ahead, moving downward toward the very edge of the roof. She seemed to be making for the house next door.

  “We’ll get her,” I yelled, and, with an abrupt twist, managed to push past Cobb. I stood, clinging to the extreme edge of the chimney stack.

  “Mrs. Salt,” I shouted. “It’s no good. Stop.”

  At the sound of my voice, the figure halted suddenly. She glanced around as though to gauge the distance which lay between us and herself.

  As long as I live, I shall never forget that tableau. I shall never forget that dark silhouette, poised there with one arm stretched out for balance and thrown into vague illumi
nation by the oblique rays from a street lamp below.

  “Mrs. Salt,” I cried once more.

  The figure moved forward again, out of the light. Beneath her I could see the wet tiles gleaming, see their dangerous downward slant. The woman took another step and stumbled. Her hand flew out—clutching, clutching at nothingness. She toppled. Both arms were flung out in a desperate attempt to save herself. Slowly her feet slid downward. I could just see the two heels shining. I gazed at them in fascination as the figure slipped slowly—nearer and nearer the edge of the roof.

  “We must—we must get her.”

  I remember an insane impulse taking possession of me. I let go the chimney and leaned forward. Cobb shouted something which I did not hear. I caught another glimpse of that figure. It was still slipping slowly, as she gripped futilely at the gleaming tiles.

  I sprang forward in an instinctive effort to save her, but, as I did so, I felt a sudden shock. Something had struck me hard in the face. The tiles merged into a kaleidoscope of shooting stars. Then I seemed to be falling, falling.

  For an instant my brains struggled against unconsciousness. From miles, it seemed, I heard a long, wild scream—like the scream of a desperate animal. It lingered, throbbing in the air.

  I remember nothing more.

  X

  A FIEND

  When I came to my senses, I was lying in a room which I had never seen before. At first I was conscious only of the white expanse of ceiling above me and the hard brilliance of the electric light. Then—gradually—faces began to detach themselves and I heard voices. My head seemed to be splitting.

  “Feel better now?” Doctor Foley’s blurred image faded into the background and was replaced by that of my old friend, Cobb. His blue eyes were tense and anxious.

  “Where am I?” I murmured stupidly.