‘I tell ’ee,’ George Farmer was saying in the public bar of the Wood Cutter. ‘My girl Francie, she bin an’ seen ’um. She war goin’ home, along about six last evenin,’ when a girt stubby sort of a feller joomped out of ’edge like. Girt face ’e ’ad on ’im, Francie said, like ’e war some sort on a goberlin.’
‘But this ’ere,’ said Ted Lorry, tapping the Clarion, ‘did say summat about a Dr Reade.’
George Farmer shook his head. George Farmer spat ruminatively into a far corner of the bar. ‘Carn’t ’elp what paper says. This ’ere what joomped out of ’edge like on my Francie was a girt, stubby sort on a goberlin sort-of-a-chap.’
III
Mr Colby was on holiday. That is to say, he was at home and not at his office. Following his terrible loss, Mr Colby had been granted by his office a month’s leave of absence. He had wanted to take Mrs Colby away from Holmdale for this month. But women, as Mr Colby, in those happy days which seemed so far behind him, had often said, ‘were kittle cattle,’ and Mrs Colby strangely preferred to stay in Holmdale and in their little house. Mr Colby acceded to her wish, but had a private wish of his own that soon she would ask him ‘take me away.’ Personally he found that every corner of every street in Holmdale; that every square inch of every room in his house; that every sound and sight and smell in this neighbourhood reminded him of Lionel, and his one wish nowadays seemed to be to attain a state where thinking of Lionel was, if not impossible, at least infrequent. For to think of Lionel was, to Mr Colby, most acutely painful. The thought of Lionel seemed to grip him with a cold bony hand which clamped its fingers about his insides.
Mr Colby sat apathetic in his parlour. Beside him, upon the arm of his comfortable chair—the chair upon whose arm Lionel had so frequently been reprimanded for bouncing—there lay one of the now almost daily ‘Special’ editions of the Holmdale Clarion. Mr Colby, sucking at an empty pipe, kept looking at this paper. He supposed that he wanted to read it, but although once or twice his mind had bidden his hands to take hold of this paper and bring it properly within his field of vision, so far his hands had refused to obey …
Odd! thought Mr Colby. He’d found this sort of thing happening more than once during the last week. And it seemed to be getting worse. This, he thought, would never do … He made a great effort. A frown, deeper even than the perpetual frown which had come since Lionel’s death, creased his brow … The hands obeyed. They moved and took up the paper and opened it and held the centre page so that his eyes could properly read it …
Mr Colby read. For a few moments what his eyes were reading was not communicated to his brain. He went on staring at the same few lines of large-lettered print. As, however, his eyes did not move from these few lines, gradually their meaning sank into his mind.
Mr Colby shot to his feet as if impelled by a giant spring. Clutching the paper in a hand which shook as if agued, he blundered towards the door. There must have been something the matter with his sight, for, although he had often boasted that he knew the way blindfold not only about his own house but about the whole of Holmdale, he now got to the door through a series of collisions.
But he did get to the door, and he did open it, and he did run out into the passage crying:
‘Mother! Mother!’
Mrs Colby’s uncertain cry came faintly to him down the narrow stairs. Up them Mr Colby blundered, twice falling and twice picking himself up without knowing that he had fallen.
‘Mother!’ said Mr Colby again. He blundered into the bedroom. Mrs Colby was sitting huddled—staring rather vacantly at the wash-stand—upon the edge of the bed. Her hands were squeezed between her knees. During these past few days her plump comeliness seemed to have sagged, so that now she was, as it were, withered behind her shell. Her shoulders drooped. Her hair was lank and wispy. Her cheeks sagged into two pendulous little jowls. Beneath her eyes were two black half moons and the eyes themselves had over their erstwhile beauty a hard, glittering, permanent-seeming glaze.
‘Mother!’ said Mr Colby, blundering to the bed and somehow seating himself upon the edge beside his wife. He held out the paper and the shaking hand.
Mrs Colby turned dull eyes, first upon her husband and then upon the paper to which her husband seemed to be drawing her notice … She stared. She shut her eyes; then opened them wide …
‘I don’t believe it!’ said Mrs Colby.
Mr Colby’s fingers opened and the paper fluttered down from their grasp to the floor where it lay like an untidy mound of pantomime snow against the dark red carpet.
‘My God!’ said Mr Colby. ‘My God: Don’t believe it! Don’t believe it! What d’you mean: Don’t believe it!’ He pointed the shaking hand downwards at the paper, making little stabbing movements with a stubby fore-finger.
‘Doesn’t it say so in the paper?’ said Mr Colby.
Mrs Colby’s head dropped until her face was veiled from her husband’s gaze.
‘I don’t care,’ she said dully. ‘I don’t care. I don’t believe it.’
Mr Colby sprang up from the bed, a strange quaint little figure with, just for this instant, a wild power and dignity about it.
‘If I had that man here!’ said Mr Colby.
Mrs Colby shook her head wearily. ‘I don’t care,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe it.’
Mr Colby suddenly raged. ‘Don’t believe it!’ he mimicked savagely. ‘What d’you mean with your “don’t believe it!” Don’t believe it! … Seen it there, in that paper? Seen he’s been arrested? Don’t they know he’s the Butcher? … My God!’ said Mr Colby. ‘If there was any justice in this Heaven-forsaken world, they’d have him burnt to death.’ Suddenly he broke. The force which had been in him went away from him. He was like a lighted candle, suddenly snuffed by ruthless finger and thumb. He fell upon his knees by the bed. His head lolled awkwardly upon Mrs Colby’s knees. Strange convulsions shook him. Mrs Colby put an absent-minded hand to his head and passed its fingers through his hair.
Over his head her lips still shaped the words: ‘I don’t believe it!’ And suddenly she said aloud, in a new, strange voice:
‘It wasn’t him. He’s … human. Lionel … Lionel … What killed Lionel wasn’t human …’
Upon her knees Mr Colby’s round untidy head rolled and lolled like an insane child’s.
IV
‘My dear,’ said Mrs Lightfoot, ‘you can’t imagine what I felt like, to think that that man was here only last Tuesday, putting a swab down Ted’s throat, and all the time he might have been murdering us all, without anyone to stop him!’
‘I know, Lucy,’ Mrs Stirling nodded her head so hard that she bumped her chin upon the top railing of the fence dividing the two gardens. ‘I always did think there was something queerish about him.’
Mrs Lightfoot pegged a pair of her husband’s long woollen drawers on to the line with decisive and almost vicious thrusts. ‘That white face he’s got, and that black hair …’
‘I know! And my dear, those sort of odd-like eyes. And to think of him—the doctor that we all looked up to, to put our kids right when they were ill, all the time being this horrible Butcher!’ Mrs Lightfoot shuddered, covering her face with well-shaped but washing-wrinkled hands.
V
‘Stans to reason!’ Bilby thumped the work bench until all the tools rattled. ‘Stans to reason, you don’t get a feller like that, a feller as’ll stay up all night same as ’e did with my Jack, lookin’ after a sick kid—you don’t get a feller like that, goin’ round stickin’ daggers into innercent people’s stummicks. Stans to reason!’
‘Stans to reason,’ said Bilby’s mate. ‘My left bloody ankle. Here’s this dispenserer of ’is, vanished like. There ’e is, wandering about, so they say, the same night as young Bert Rogers is done in, and there ’e is, wot’s more, in stir … Course ’e’s the Butcher. All I wisht is they’d let the guy out and let a few o’ the boys get at ’im. It’d do more good, that would, than this respectable ’angin’!’
Th
e voice of the foreman chipped in on the conversation. In the foreman’s hand was a copy of the same edition of the Clarion as that which lay upon the bench between Bilby and his argumentative mate.
‘You,’ said the foreman’s voice, ‘can say what you qualified-well like. This ’ere doctor may ’ave done away with this ’ere suspencer, but what I can tell you is this; this ’ere doctor is not the ’Olmdale Butcher. And I’ll tell you for why; this ’ere doctor ain’t the ’Olmdale Butcher, ’cos ’e don’t look no more like the ’Olmdale Butcher than your foot, Bilby, looks like the Queen’s!’ The foreman came near to Bilby. He bent until his face was opposite Bilby’s, and prodded Bilby in the chest with a bony forefinger which felt like the end of a spanner. The foreman sank his voice until it became a sinister and rasping whisper.
‘The ’Olmdale Butcher, Bilby,’ said the foreman, ‘’as bin seen.’
‘Koo!’ said Bilby.
‘Yes,’ said the foreman. ‘Seen by a reliable witness—my brother-in-law. I dunno whether you knows my brother-in-law, but ’e works at Breakfast Barlies’: ’is name’s Leslie Todd—’e married my sister out o’ pity and now ’e’s the one to be pitied. Well, Leslie, ’e was comin’ ’ome the day before yesterday, acrosst the fields between Breakfast Barlies’ and Attwater Road. ’E’s just goin’ ’ome whistlin’ merry like to keep ’is spirits up, just on account of all the talk on account o’ this ’ere Butcher, when ’e sees somethink and ’ears somethink which, I might tell you, sends ’is spirits down with a bump. Somethink seems to pop out from the ground ’afore ’im, somethink which ’e sees as ’e approaches is an old man, a very, very tall old man with a very, very long beard, and this old man, ’e ’as waving white ’air, Bilby, and in ’is right hand, Bilby, ’e’s got a gleamin’ knife—and this old man ’e lets out a ’owl and it makes one spring toward Les—’
‘Koo!’ said Mr Bilby again.
‘Well,’ said the foreman, still in his dreadful whisper, ‘may you say so! Leslie, ’e gives one shriek-like and then ’e’s orf, an’ ’e don’t stop, I might tell you, till ’e gets ’ome. ’E ’asn’t got over it yet. ’E wakes up in the night a-shiverin’ and a-sweatin’ and a-cryin’ out that the Butcher’s arter ’im. ’E says ’e’ll ’ear them poundin’ feet comin’ arter ’im in ’is sleep for the rest of ’is natural … Well, and what’s the matter with you, me lad?’ This last sentence, in his natural and ireful voice, the foreman addressed to Bilby’s mate.
‘I only said,’ the mate said with forced humility, ‘why the ’ell don’t your ruddy brother-in-lor go and report ’is blood-curdlin’ narrative to the p’lice?’
‘My brother-in-law,’ said the foreman with slow wrath, ‘is no B.F. ’E did report the ’ole ’orrible incident eggzakly as it occurred …’
‘Koo!’ said Mr Bilby.
VI
The house of Mrs Rudolph Sharp lies a little back from Tall Elms Road. It is the fourth house in that most exclusive of Holmdale’s thoroughfares, and it has, rather like its owner, a good deal more in front of than behind it.
There were guests at Mrs Rudolph Sharp’s, for she was giving one of her periodic luncheon parties. All her progeny were there, the three girls Pamela, Priscilla and Prunella; the two boys Francis and Ronald and also—though he was indeed of small moment—Mr Rudolph Sharp. The guests were Martin Prideaux and his wife, Moll. Prideaux was the Swiss-American production expert recently imported by the Empire Educational Film Company who had, at great price, reft him from Hollywood where he had been, so he frequently would tell the world, the right hand man of Donald Blacklawn.
Mrs Rudolph Sharp had met the Prideaux only a week before. She was taken with the Prideaux. She felt that the Prideaux were worth-while. She sat, now, at the head of her pleasant dining-table and behind a mask of supreme but sufficiently pleasant boredom was titillated to the very marrow of her being by the casual references to great public figures—references usually made by Christian names but in such manner as to leave the surnames beyond doubt—which passed so nonchalantly between Martin Prideaux and Moll Prideaux. Greta for instance—who could this be but Garbo? Big Bill, who could this be but Tilden? Wait a minute! Might it not be Fox? Harley Wood, what could this be but the home of Douglas and Mary, Rod and Vilma, Charles and Chaplin? …
But the family of Mrs Sharp was not impressed to so great an extent. The family of Mrs Sharp began to talk among themselves. Said Francis to Ronnie:
‘I say! Seen the Clarion today?’
‘No.’ Ronnie shook his head. ‘What’s on? More Butcher?’
‘You haven’t seen it!’ Francis was incredulous. His voice, full of the triumph of the bringer of news, was raised even above the strident nasalities of Moll Prideaux. ‘Then you don’t know!’ He leaned forward, and said with great empressement:
‘There won’t be any more Butcher murders! They’ve got the Butcher!’
There was a stir round the table. Many voices simultaneously said:
‘What? What’s that? Say that again!’
Francis sat back in his chair. He was a small and greasy-looking but moderately intelligent youth of twenty-four. He suffered from the suspicion that the world’s valuation of Francis Sharp was not quite upon a par with Francis Sharp’s own. When there came, therefore, isolated moments like this into his life, when a company fixed their attention upon himself even momentarily, he was in the habit of making such moments last for so long as they might. He placed his hands together, finger-tip to finger-tip, upon the edge of the table. He said, after a deliberate pause:
‘It’s all in the Clarion. They’ve arrested the Butcher. Of course they don’t say that they know he’s the Butcher, but it’s obvious … I must admit it was a surprise to me, knowing the fellah and all that. But then, the longer I live, the more I realise how surprising life can be … To think that a decent fellah like that that we all know—’
‘For the Lord’s sake,’ said Ronald, ‘hurry up! Who is it?’
‘You don’t mean to say,’ said Mrs Sharp, ‘that you know, Francis?’ She turned with pride upon Moll Prideaux. ‘Francis is an extraordinary boy. He always gets to hear of everything. He’s always first.’
‘Who,’ said Ronald, thumping the table, ‘is it? Say at once or I’ll—’
He was never to tell what he would do, for at the moment of his thumping the table there descended upon the back of his neck an avalanche of spinach.
‘What the hell!’ said Ronald, for the spinach was very hot and very wet.
He sprang up, scraping with clawing fingers at the back of his neck.
The noise of talk and movement was cut off as suddenly as if a dumbness had smitten the world. Everyone at the table was gazing, petrified, at the spectacle of a black-frocked, white-aproned, be-capped parlourmaid, two dishes slipping from her nerveless hands, her healthy pretty face blanched to a deathly pallor, giving slowly at the knees and slipping in a huddled, crumpled heap to the floor. For this was Mary Phillimore, and Mary Phillimore had been betrothed of Albert Rogers, the Butcher’s last victim.
Poor Mary. She had held out against ghoulish enquiry and a sympathy which seemed to her more than half based upon curiosity. She had carried on with her work. She had done her weeping decently and orderly by herself. She had made a mask to put on against the world, but now, with the news of the finding of the beast who had turned a pleasant life into a very fiery Hell, she had lost herself.
VII
‘My dear fellow!’ said Mr Runciman. ‘My dear fellow! You don’t mean to tell me seriously that dear old Reade has been jolly well arrested!’
‘My dear Runciman,’ retorted Mr Calvin, ‘I think you heard me. If you didn’t hear me I can only suggest the application of slightly more soap and water last thing every night and first thing every morning.’
‘Well,’ said Mr Runciman, ‘I’m damned!’
Mr Calvin smiled. ‘Very possibly, Runciman; in fact I should say, inevitably. But there it is. It appears that Reade has been taken up un
der suspicion of being the Butcher.’
Mr Piggott-Smith put in his word. ‘Can’t understand,’ he said, ‘haow on earth a decent chep lake Reade kems under suspicion lake this.’
Mr Piggott-Smith subsided under the combined glares of Runciman and Calvin. Piggott-Smith was a retired Something-Or-Other while Runciman was manager of the Holmdale United Laundries Limited, and Calvin the manager of the Holmdale Electricity Supply Company Limited. Runciman and Calvin detested each other, but were as one in determination to blot out Piggott-Smith and all his kind. They were on their way to the Club House. Runciman fell into step beside Calvin. In the rear Piggott-Smith trailed along disconsolate, dragging behind him a bag of clubs which were too heavy for him to lift.
‘The whole thing is nonsense,’ said Runciman. ‘Blasted rot, my dear fellow! What I mean: a chap, a decent chap like Reade, the sort of a chap who’s always good for a hand of Bridge and that sort of thing; the sort of chap one has to dinner and all that; well—you know what I mean, Calvin—that sort of a chap—he can’t possibly be this Butcher.’
‘I see no valid reason,’ said Calvin, ‘why anyone shouldn’t be the Butcher. For all you know, Runciman, I might be. For all I know, you might be: in fact, looking at you, I’m not at all sure that you’re not.’
Runciman laughed, both an annoyed and an annoying sound. ‘As a matter of fact, my dear Calvin,’ he said. ‘You are, as I am afraid is pretty usual, quite utterly wrong. What I want to know is this: why don’t the police do something! For all I can see, they might just as well not be here at all … Now if they’d only get someone with a business head to help them get some method … For instance, I had a theory; still have, if it comes to that. But would they listen to me when I took it to them? Of course they wouldn’t … Time, however, will show.’
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