Dorothy L. Sayers - [Lord Peter Wimsey 03]

by Unnatural Death

  “Peter,” said Parker’s voice, “come and look at this.”

  He got up wearily.

  There were the remains of a picnic lunch a little farther down the hollow. The policeman had a little bag in his hand—he had taken it from under the body, and was now turning over the trifles it contained. On the ground, close to the dead girl’s head, was a thick, heavy spanner—unpleasantly discoloured and with a few fair hairs sticking to its jaws. But what Parker was calling his attention to was none of these, but a man’s mauve-grey cap.

  “Where did you find that?” asked Wimsey.

  “Alf here picked it up at the top of the hollow,” said Parker.

  “Tumbled off into the gorse it was,” corroborated the scout, “just up here, lying upside down just as if it had fallen off somebody’s head.”

  “Any footmarks?”

  “Not likely. But there’s a place where the bushes are all trodden and broken. Looks as if there’d been some sort of struggle. What’s become of the Austin? Hi! don’t touch that spanner, my lad. There may be finger-prints on it. This looks like an attack by some gang or other. Any money in that purse? Ten-shilling note, sixpence and a few coppers—oh! Well, the other woman may have had more on her. She’s very well off, you know. Held up for ransom, I shouldn’t wonder.” Parker bent down and very gingerly enfolded the spanner in a silk handkerchief, carrying it slung by the four corners. “Well, we’d better spread about and have a look for the car. Better try that belt of trees over there. Looks a likely spot. And, Hopkins—I think you’d better run back with our car to Crow’s Beach and let ’em know at the station, and come back with a photographer. And take this wire and send it to the Chief Commissioner at Scotland Yard, and find a doctor and bring him along with you. And you’d better hire another car while you’re about it, in case we don’t find the Austin—we shall be too many to get away in this one. Take Alf back with you if you’re not sure of finding the place again. Oh! and Hopkins, fetch us along something to eat and drink, will you, we may be at it a long time. Here’s some money—that enough?”

  “Yes, thank you, sir.”

  The constable went off, taking Alf, who was torn between a desire to stay and do some more detecting, and the pride and glory of being first back with the news. Parker gave a few words of praise for his valuable assistance which filled him with delight, and then turned to the Chief Constable.

  “They obviously went off in this direction. Would you bear away to the left, sir, and enter the trees from that end, and Peter, will you bear to the right and work through from the other end, while I go straight up the middle?”

  The Chief Constable, who seemed a good deal shaken by the discovery of the body, obeyed without a word. Wimsey caught Parker by the arm.

  “I say,” he said, “have you looked at the wound? Something funny, isn’t there? There ought to be more mess, somehow. What do you think?”

  “I’m not thinking anything for the moment,” said Parker, a little grimly. “We’ll wait for the doctor’s report. Come on, Steve! We want to dig out that car.”

  “Let’s have a look at the cap. H’m. Sold by a gentleman of the Jewish persuasion, resident in Stepney. Almost new. Smells strongly of Californian Poppy—rather a swell sort of gangsman, apparently. Quite one of the lads of the village.”

  “Yes—we ought to be able to trace that. Thank Heaven, they always overlook something. Well, we’d better get along.”

  The search for the car presented no difficulties. Parker stumbled upon it almost as soon as he got in under the trees. There was a clearing, with a little rivulet of water running through it, beside which stood the missing Austin. There were other trees here, mingled with the pines, and the water made an elbow and spread into a shallow pool, with a kind of muddy beach.

  The hood of the car was up, and Parker approached with an uncomfortable feeling that there might be something disagreeable inside, but it was empty. He tried the gears. They were in neutral and the handbrake was on. On the seat was a handkerchief—a large linen handkerchief, very grubby and with no initials or laundry-mark. Parker grunted a little over the criminal’s careless habit of strewing his belongings about. He came round in front of the car and received immediate further proof of carelessness. For on the mud there were footmarks—two men’s and a woman’s, it seemed.

  The woman had got out of the car first—he could see where the left heel had sunk heavily in as she extricated herself from the low seat. Then the right foot—less heavily—then she had staggered a little and started to run. But one of the men had been there to catch her. He had stepped out of the bracken in shoes with new rubbers on them, and there were some scuffling marks as though he had held her and she had tried to break away. Finally, the second man, who seemed to possess rather narrow feet and to wear the long-toed boots affected by Jew boys of the louder sort—had come after her from the car—the marks of his feet were clear, crossing and half-obliterating hers. All three had stood together for a little. Then the tracks moved away, with those of the woman in the middle, and led up to where the mark of a Michelin balloon tyre showed clearly. The tyres on the Austin were ordinary Dunlops—besides, this was obviously a bigger car. It had apparently stood there for some little time, for a little pool of engine-oil had dripped from the crank-case. Then the bigger car had moved off, down a sort of ride that led away through the trees. Parker followed it for a little distance, but the tracks soon became lost in a thick carpet of pine-needles. Still, there was no other road for a car to take. He turned to the Austin to investigate further. Presently shouts told him that the other two were converging upon the centre of the wood. He called back and before long Wimsey and Sir Charles Pillington came crashing towards him through the bracken which fringed the pines.

  “Well,” said Wimsey, “I imagine we may put down this elegant bit of purple headgear to the gentleman in the slim boots. Bright yellow, I fancy, with buttons. He must be lamenting his beautiful cap. The woman’s footprints belong to Mary Whittaker, I take it.”

  “I suppose so. I don’t see how they can be the Findlater girl’s. This woman went or was taken off in the car.”

  “They are certainly not Vera Findlater’s—there was no mud on her shoes when we found her.”

  “Oh! you were taking notice, then. I thought you were feeling a bit dead to the world.”

  “So I was, old dear, but I can’t help noticin’ things, though moribund. Hullo! what’s this?”

  He put his hand down behind the cushions of the car and pulled out an American magazine—that monthly collection of mystery and sensational fiction published under the name of The Black Mask.

  “Light reading for the masses,” said Parker.

  “Brought by the gentleman in the yellow boots, perhaps,” suggested the Chief Constable.

  “More likely by Miss Findlater,” said Wimsey.

  “Hardly a lady’s choice,” said Sir Charles, in a pained tone.

  “Oh, I dunno. From all I hear, Miss Whittaker was dead against sentimentality and roses round the porch, and the other poor girl copied her in everything. They might have a boyish taste in fiction.”

  “Well, it’s not very important,” said Parker.

  “Wait a bit. Look at this. Somebody’s been making marks on it.”

  Wimsey held out the cover for inspection. À thick pencil-mark had been drawn under the first two words of the title.

  “Do you think it’s some sort of message? Perhaps the book was on the seat, and she contrived to make the marks unnoticed and shove it away here before they transferred her to the other car.”

  “Ingenious,” said Sir Charles, “but what does it mean? The Black. It makes no sense.”

  “Perhaps the long-toed gentleman was a nigger,” suggested Parker. “Nigger taste runs rather to boots and hair-oil. Or possibly a Hindu or Parsee of sorts.”

  “God bless my soul,” said Sir Charles, horrified, “an English girl in the hands of a nigger. How abominable!”

  “Well, we’
ll hope it isn’t so. Shall we follow the road out or wait for the doctor to arrive?”

  “Better go back to the body, I think,” said Parker. “They’ve got a long start of us, and half an hour more or less in following them up won’t make much odds.”

  They turned from the translucent cool greenness of the little wood back on to the downs. The streamlet clacked merrily away over the pebbles, running out to the southwest on its way to the river and the sea.

  “It’s all very well your chattering,” said Wimsey to the water. “Why can’t you say what you’ve seen?”

  CHAPTER XXI

  BY WHAT MEANS?

  “Death hath so many doors to let out life.” BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY

  THE DOCTOR TURNED OUT to be a plumpish, fussy man—and what Wimsey impatiently called a “Tutster.” He tutted over the mangled head of poor Vera Findlater as though it was an attack of measles after a party or a self-provoked fit of the gout.

  “Tst, tst, tst. A terrible blow. How did we come by that, I wonder? Tst, tst. Life extinct? Oh, for several days, you know. Tst, tst—which makes it so much more painful, of course. Dear me, how shocking for her poor parents. And her sisters. They are very agreeable girls; you know them, of course, Sir Charles. Yes. Tst, tst.”

  “There is no doubt, I suppose,” said Parker, “that it is Miss Findlater.”

  “None whatever,” said Sir Charles.

  “Well, as you can identify her, it may be possible to spare the relatives the shock of seeing her like this. Just a moment, doctor—the photographer wants to record the position of the body before you move anything. Now, Mr.—Andrews?—yes:—have you ever done any photographs of this kind before? No?—well, you mustn’t be upset by it! I know it’s rather unpleasant. One from here, please, to show the position of the body—now from the top of the bank—that’s right—now one of the wound itself—a closeup view, please. Yes. Thank you. Now, doctor, you can turn her over, please—I’m sorry, Mr. Andrews—I know exactly how you are feeling, but these things have to be done. Hullo! look how her arms are all scratched about. Looks as if she’d put up a bit of a fight. The right wrist and, left elbow—as though someone had been trying to, hold her down. We must have a photograph of the marks, Mr. Andrews—they may be important. I say, doctor, what do you make of this on the face?”

  The doctor looked as though he would have preferred not to make so much as an examination of the face. However, with many tuts he worked himself up to giving an opinion.

  “As far as one can tell, with all these post-mortem changes,” he ventured, “it looks as though the face had been roughened or burnt about the nose and lips. Yet there is no appearance of the kind on the bridge of the nose, neck or forehead. Tst, tst—otherwise I should have put it down to severe sunburn.”

  “How about chloroform burns?” suggested Parker.

  “Tst, tst,” said the doctor, annoyed at not having thought of this himself—“I wish you gentlemen of the police force would not be quite so abrupt. You want everything decided in too great a hurry. I was about to remark—if you had not anticipated me—that since I could not put the appearance down to sunburn, there remains some such possibility as you suggest. I can’t possibly say that it is the result of chloroform—medical pronouncements of that kind cannot be hastily made without cautious investigation—but I was about to remark that it night be.”

  “In that case,” put in Wimsey, “could she have died from the effects of the chloroform? Supposing she was given too much or that her heart was weak?”

  “My good sir,” said the doctor, deeply offended this time, “look at that blow upon the head, and ask yourself whether it is necessary to suggest any other cause of death. Moreover, if she had died of the chloroform, where would be the necessity for the blow?”

  “That is exactly what I was wondering,” said Wimsey.

  “I suppose,” went on the doctor, “you will hardly dispute my medical knowledge?”

  “Certainly not,” said Wimsey, “but as you say, it is unwise to make any medical pronouncement without cautious investigation.”

  “And this is not the place for it,” put in Parker, hastily. “I think we have done all there is to do here. Will you go with the body to the mortuary, doctor. Mr. Andrews, I shall be obliged if you will come and take a few photographs of some footmarks and so on up in the wood. The light is bad, I’m afraid, but we must do our best.”

  He took Wimsey by the arm.

  “The man is a fool, of course,” he said, “but we can get a second opinion. In the meantime, we had better let it be supposed that we accept the surface explanation of all this.”

  “What is the difficulty?” asked Sir Charles, curiously.

  “Oh, nothing much,” replied Parker. “All the appearances are in favour of the girls having been attacked by a couple of ruffians, who have carried Miss Whittaker off with a view to ransom, after brutally knocking Miss Findlater on the head when she offered resistance. Probably that is the true explanation. Any minor discrepancies will doubtless clear themselves up in time. We shall know better when we have had a proper medical examination.”

  They returned to the wood, where photographs were taken and careful measurements made of the footprints. The Chief Constable followed these activities with intense interest, looking over Parker’s shoulder as he entered the particulars in his notebook.

  “I say,” he said, suddenly, “isn’t it rather odd—”

  “Here’s somebody coming,” broke in Parker.

  The sound of a motor-cycle being urged in second gear over the rough ground proved to be the herald of a young man armed with a camera.

  “Oh, God!” groaned Parker. “The damned Press already.”

  He received the journalist courteously enough, showing him the wheel-tracks and the footprints, and outlining the kidnapping theory as they walked back to the place where the body was found.

  “Can you give us any idea, Inspector, of the appearance of the two wanted men?”

  “Well,” said Parker, “one of them appears to be something of a dandy; he wears a loathsome mauve cap and narrow pointed shoes, and, if those marks on the magazine cover mean anything, one or other of the men may possibly be a coloured man of some kind. Of the second man, all we can definitely say is that he wears number 10 shoes, with rubber heels.”

  “I was going to say,” said Pillington, “that, à propos de bottes, it is rather remarkable—”

  “And this is where we found the body of Miss Findlater,” went on Parker, ruthlessly. He described the injuries and the position of the body, and the journalist gratefully occupied himself with taking photographs, including a group of Wimsey, Parker and the Chief Constable standing among the gorse-bushes, while the latter majestically indicated the fatal spot with his walking-stick.

  “And now you’ve got what you want, old son,” said Parker, benevolently, “buzz off, won’t you, and tell the rest of the boys. You’ve got all we can tell you, and we’ve got other things to do beyond granting special interviews.”

  The reporter asked no better. This was tantamount to making his information exclusive, and no Victorian matron could have a more delicate appreciation of the virtues of exclusiveness than a modern newspaper man.

  “Well now, Sir Charles,” said Parker, when the man had happily chugged and popped himself away, “what were you about to say in the matter of the footprints?”

  But Sir Charles was offended. The Scotland Yard man had snubbed him and thrown doubt on his discretion.

  “Nothing,” he replied. “I feel sure that my conclusions would appear very elementary to you.”

  And he preserved a dignified silence throughout the return journey.

  The Whittaker case had begun almost imperceptibly, in the overhearing of a casual remark dropped in a Soho restaurant; it ended amid a roar of publicity that shook England from end to end and crowded even Wimbledon into the second place. The bare facts of the murder and kidnapping appeared exclusively that ni
ght in a Late Extra edition of the Evening Views. Next morning it sprawled over the Sunday papers with photographs and full details, actual and imaginary. The idea of two English girls—the one brutally killed, the other carried off for some end unthinkably sinister, by a black man—aroused all the passion of horror and indignation of which the English temperament is capable. Reporters swarmed down upon Crow’s Beach like locusts—the downs near Shelly Head were like a fair with motors, bicycles and parties on foot, rushing out to spend a happy week-end amid surroundings of mystery and bloodshed. Parker, who with Wimsey had taken rooms at the Green Lion, sat answering the telephone and receiving the letters and wires which descended upon him from all sides, with a stalwart policeman posted at the end of the passage to keep out all intruders.

  Wimsey fidgeted about the room, smoking cigarette after cigarette in his excitement.

  “This time we’ve got them,” he said. “They’ve overreached themselves, thank God!”

  “Yes. But have a little patience, old man. We can’t lose them—but we must have all the facts first.”

  “You’re sure those fellows have got Mrs. Forrest safe?”

  “Oh, yes. She came back to the flat on Monday night—or so the garage man says. Our men are shadowing her continually and will let us know the moment anybody comes to the flat.”