‘It’s logical so far as it goes, sir,’ said Donaldson, ‘but what I don’t understand is, if Sherwood discovered all this why he didn’t go to the police . . .?’
‘Neither he nor his wife had any very great opinion of the police,’ answered Peter. ‘You must realize that for nearly two years the police here had done nothing. And he hadn’t any proof. He was probably afraid that any accusation he might make would merely be laughed at as fantastic — as it probably would. He preferred to take the matter into his own hands. I doubt if he regarded the killing of those people as murder — more in the sense of extermination, I should say.’
‘I can understand that,’ said Donaldson. ‘I’d like to know how he found out that the meeting in the cottage was going to take place on All-Hallows’ Eve. He must have known it long enough in advance to make his preparations . . .’
‘I’ve puzzled over that,’ said Peter. ‘There are several ways in which he might have found out, but I think this is the most likely. If he had suspected the existence of a cult of Satanists in the district it’s reasonable to suppose that he would have looked round for a likely place in which they held their orgies. Why shouldn’t Witch’s House have suggested itself, and why shouldn’t he have been exploring the old cottage at the precise time that two or more of those four people elected to go there to make preparations for the Hallowe’en tryst? The glass and china, etc., had to be taken there well in advance and almost certainly by night. I suggest that Sherwood was lurking in the vicinity of the place when this happened and overheard sufficient to tell him what was contemplated . . .’
‘Yes, that’s reasonable, sir,’ agreed Donaldson. ‘But of course it’s all conjecture. There’s no real evidence . . .’
‘Does it matter?’ interrupted Peter, impatiently. ‘There’s no question of preparing a case for a jury, is there? Sherwood’s dead and Ray is dead and so, in my opinion, is Mrs. Sherwood. If Sherwood were still alive, I tell you quite candidly, Donaldson, I should have kept my mouth shut. My sympathies are all with Sherwood. I’m not at all sure that I shouldn’t have acted in exactly the same way as he did. If anybody ever deserved to die it was those four people, and the rest of the foul bunch, too . . .’
‘So far as they go, sir,’ said Donaldson, grimly, ‘there’s enough evidence here’ — he tapped the record book — ‘to convict all of ’em. The majority of them live in London and I’m having them all rounded up first thing in the morning.’
‘So that actual proof of what Sherwood did doesn’t matter,’ said Peter. ‘All we want to do is to satisfy ourselves as to what happened, and so far as I’m concerned, I’ve done that . . .’
‘You’ve satisfied me too, sir,’ said Inspector Donaldson. ‘I’ll admit that. There’s only one thing I’d like to know. How did Sherwood get hold of the poison?’
Peter shook his head.
‘I can’t tell you,’ he answered. ‘Perhaps we shall find out and perhaps we shan’t. The thing is that he did get hold of it.’ He got up stiffly and stretched himself. ‘I think I’m going to call it a day,’ he said, with a yawn. ‘And what a day . . .’
Chapter Fourteen
Inspector Donaldson discovered how Anthony Sherwood had ‘got hold of the poison’ when he made a search of the dead man’s house on the following day. Part of the cellar was fitted up as a ‘dark room’ and among the bottles of photographic chemicals on the shelf beside the sink was one labelled Pot. Cyanide bearing the name of a London chemist. The bottle was quite empty. It was here, too, that he found a long length of fairly thin but very strong rope, loosely coiled, and hung on a hook behind the door. Its discovery was not, in the circumstances, of very great import, but it tended to confirm Peter Chard’s theoretical reconstruction of how Sherwood had entered and left Witch’s House without leaving any footprints in the snow. That was all he did find. There was nothing else in the house that had even the remotest connection with the case. An inquiry at the chemist’s, whose name appeared on the bottle of poison, elicited the information that it had been sold to Anthony Sherwood six months previously. He had said that he was experimenting with a style of photography known as a ‘Cyanotype’ and, since he was an old and valued customer at the shop, the chemist had let him have it without scruple. He had signed the poison book and the transaction had been quite open and above-board.
Colonel Shoredust received Donaldson’s full report with a mixture of astonishment and incredulity. But the last lingering doubt in his mind regarding the actuality of Satanism was blown to the four winds of heaven when he was shown the two books which the inspector had found in Gilbert Ray’s room at the vicarage.
‘I should never have blasted-well believed that such things could happen,’ he declared. ‘Still beyond my comprehension, though you’ve got it there in black and white. You think that this woman, Mrs. Sherwood, is dead?’
Donaldson said he did.
‘Best thing that could have happened for her sake,’ grunted the Chief Constable. ‘Good thing for her husband, too. If they’d still been alive we’d have had to blasted-well charge ’em with murder. Those wretched people damned-well deserved what they got, but it was murder all the same. Pity Sherwood took the law into his own hands. If he’d come to us and told us what he suspected he’d be alive now. It’s your idea that his wife guessed who killed him and went and tackled Ray on her own? Stupid thing to do. If she’d said what she knew, she would be alive too.’
Donaldson pointed out that she could hardly have done that without confessing herself to be an accessory to murder.
‘Suppose not,’ agreed Colonel Shoredust. ‘Wonder how he persuaded her to go with him to Witch’s House? Ray, I mean. Oh, well, it doesn’t matter, does it? The whole thing is practically finished, bar the blasted shouting. Horrible business altogether . . .’
A horrible business indeed, thought Donaldson, as he made his circuitous journey back to Fendyke St. Mary, which involved a wide detour to avoid the flooded area that lay between the village and Hinton. He was very glad that the end of it was in sight. The eighteen people whose names appeared in the register of membership, together with their signatures, should all be under arrest by nightfall if the Yard had acted on the information he had telephoned. Of course there was still a lot to be done. The case for the prosecution had to be prepared, but it wasn’t likely to prove difficult, thanks to those books, and he could attend to it from his own home . . . It would be nice to see his family again — the missus and young Alice . . . There was nothing like being able to go home after a hard day’s work . . . He’d be very thankful to see the last of Fendyke St. Mary . . . A nasty and unpleasant business . . .
*
It was nearly three weeks before the flood waters subsided, leaving behind a waste of mud and wreckage. Amidst the ruins of Witch’s House, which had partially collapsed, Superintendent Odds found the body of April Sherwood. She had not died by drowning. In the side of her neck was a knife wound similar to the one which had killed her husband.
*
The morning was warm and sunny, one of those almost perfect mornings that sometimes come in early spring. Through the open window of his study, Peter Chard could see the big lilac tree in the middle of the lawn just beginning to show signs of the buds that would in a week or so become trusses of delicate, sweet-scented bloom. He was feeling particularly pleased and contented that morning. The new book which, after many false starts and initial labour, he had begun just before Christmas, was finished and he thought it was far the best thing he had yet done — more mature, more truly imaginative, than anything he had previously attempted. He was looking at the pile of manuscript waiting to be packed up and sent to his typist with an inward glow of self-satisfaction, when the door opened and his wife came in.
‘I’ve just had a letter from Aunt Helen, darling,’ she said, perching herself on the edge of the desk and displaying a large portion of very shapely leg in the process. ‘She writes just the same as she talks and she never bothers to punctuate a
t all. It’s very difficult to decipher what she means sometimes . . .’
Miss Wymondham’s letter was crammed with news: Hewson had fallen downstairs and hurt his knee; Tom Twist had caught a severe chill through sitting all night on a tombstone in the churchyard and had nearly died as a result; the repairs to the houses in the flood-devastated area were still going on; the Reverend Amos Benskill had got a new curate, ‘a very nice young man, my dear, with glasses and a wart on the side of his nose, but, of course, he can’t help that and he really seems most enthusiastic and conscientious . . .’ Wedged in amongst all this small fry was an item of news that brought back vividly to Peter’s mind the events of that November month. Robson and the ringleaders of the riot, during which Gourley had died, had been tried and received varying sentences for manslaughter . . .
‘That’s one of the things I’ve always been wondering,’ said Ann. ‘Why was Gourley so friendly with Fay Bennett? I know you can’t tell me, but I would like to know.’
‘Can’t you guess?’ asked Peter, looking at the curve of her swinging leg with approval.
She shook her head.
‘Well, I may be wrong, but I should have thought it was obvious,’ he went on. ‘Gourley was a doctor. He was also very hard up. And he had previously got into trouble for performing an abortion. The rites of the cult to which the Bennett woman belonged include a great deal of sexual debauch . . . Add it all up and you should come to the same conclusion that I did . . .’
‘Oh, I see,’ she said. ‘Yes. I never thought of that . . .’ She stood up and smoothed down her dress. ‘You know, darling, I think sometimes that it was all a horrible kind of nightmare . . . That it never really happened . . .’
‘It was real enough,’ said Peter, grimly. ‘Horribly and hideously real, though there were quite a number of people who refused to believe that such things could happen. Look at all the letters that were written to the newspapers during the trial of the rest of the coven. It was a good thing that Donaldson was able to produce those books. Nobody would have believed it if he hadn’t, and those wretched people would never have been sent to the gallows. Sherwood knew that. He knew that nobody would have believed him. That’s why he acted as his own judge, jury and executioner. I’m ready to bet that the greater part of the population are still sceptical — even after all the facts that came out at the trial . . .’
He got up and put his arm round his wife’s shoulders.
‘Let’s go out in the garden and see what’s coming up,’ he suggested. ‘I’m not going to do any work today. I think after that’ — he jerked his head at the heap of manuscript — ‘I deserve a rest.’
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