Murder Gone Mad

by Philip MacDonald

  Pike looked at his watch. Pike, in the interests of his work had a certain amount of time to waste, but no more. He decided that Mr Crawley’s annoyance must now cease. He said, quietly, cutting into the froth of Mr Crawley’s speech as a knife will cut into soft cheese:

  ‘One moment. I’m doing my work. I don’t need to be told how to do it, you know. It’s no good glaring and frothing at the mouth, as you might say. Listen while I tell you that if you continue this behaviour I shall consider that you’re preventing me from carrying out my work properly and in that case I shall have no other alternative than to put you somewhere where you’ll cool down. You know what I mean. In Holmdale, Mr Crawley, these are extraordinary times, and extraordinary times need extraordinary measures. I don’t want to use them, but I’ll have to if you go on like this …’ His small bright eyes were boring now into Mr Crawley’s whose frothing speech was subsiding bubble by bubble.

  ‘In other words,’ said Pike, ‘if you go on behaving like this, I’ll have you taken up … so it’s no good shouting your half-baked legal knowledge at me. I’ve told you that these are extraordinary times and I’ve told you that I’ve got extraordinary powers at the moment. Now, shall I use ’em or shall I not?’

  Although he did not say so, Mr Crawley apparently decided that he would not give occasion for the use of these sinister sounding powers. Mr Crawley became tame, and Mr Crawley, tame, was very shortly got rid of. He had posted three letters; one had been to his mother in answer to a request for financial aid; a second had been to Messrs. Selfridge containing a cheque in payment of an account for 17s. IId.; the third had been to his sister who had just become engaged to be married and to whom Mr Crawley wished to offer his congratulations. The full names and addresses of the persons to whom his letters were addressed were given and fully noted by Pike, as also was Mr Crawley’s own full name, address and description. Mr Crawley, much chastened, was dismissed.

  There followed him, in this order: Miss Elsie Frost, Mr Philip Frognall, Mr Edward Thatcher, Mr Israel Gompertz, and Masters Percy Burr and George Evans.

  Miss Elsie Frost, a frigid and ill-dressed virgin, had posted one letter only and this to her solicitors, altering her will in favour of her niece, Ariadne Frost. Miss Elsie Frost, from Pike’s point of view, was satisfactory. She took up no more than two moments of his time. She was very acid during these two moments, but that was of no matter.

  Mr Philip Frognall was a watered-down edition of Mr Crawley. He was very angry, but not so angry as Mr Crawley. He was very violent, but not so violent as Mr Crawley. He was subdued more easily than Mr Crawley. Mr Frognall had certainly posted three letters, but none of them were letters of his own. They all belonged to his wife. Fortunately he was able to explain, not only to whom these letters were addressed, but also their contents. They were all as innocent as Mr Frognall’s appearance.

  Mr Edward Thatcher was neither as mild as Mr Loosebutton nor as irate as Mr Crawley. Mr Thatcher looked colourless and was colourless. He had posted one letter, addressed to Messrs. Sole and Harding, ordering a set of loose covers for the interior of his Baby Austin Saloon.

  Mr Israel Gompertz was difficult. He was, very obviously, a Jew. He was, even more obviously, anxious to oblige. But he took a very long time in obliging. Mr Gompertz beat about the bush. It cost Pike ten minutes and more of intensive questioning before he found out so much as the first reason for Mr Gompertz’s hesitancy.

  ‘You thee,’ said Mr Gompertz, ‘it ith tho awkward, Thuperintendent … If Mitheth Gompertz were to hear about thith, the’d go thraight up in the air! …’

  ‘I see. I see,’ said Pike, somehow managing to retain the air of sympathetic consideration which he had judged the best method for Mr Gompertz. ‘But if you would just tell me, in confidence, sir, what was the purport of this letter to Miss Aarons—just the broad outlines, you know—I could just make my official note and we could probably see that you got home at once.’

  Mr Gompertz rose from his seat. He came round the table and leant over the astonished Pike. Supporting himself with one hand upon the edge of the table, he bent still further over until his lips were no more than half an inch away from the left ear of Pike. Mr Gompertz made hissing noises like a kettle.

  But something must have been clear. For Pike made his hieroglyphic notes and, so soon as he had given details of his address, Mr Gompertz was allowed to depart.

  There were now left only the two boys—Masters Percy Burr and George Evans. Of these, Percy Burr was first. Percy Burr was much afraid. It seemed to Percy Burr that he was in imminent danger of being strung up, and he said so, with, at the end, an outbreak of blubbering. If Mr Crawley had been present to see Superintendent Pike’s handling of Master Percy Burr, he would have been astonished. He would have found it difficult to believe that this was the same man who had browbeaten him into submission.

  Percy Burr became calm at last, and explained that he had indeed posted letters, four letters to be exact. He did not know what letters they were because they had been given to him by his mother. At the same time as giving him the letters, Master Burr explained, his mother had given him threepence with which to buy sweets. This he had done before posting the letters.

  Pike looked at Percy Burr. Behind his pleasantly smiling face the thoughts raced furiously. He said at last:

  ‘Is there a telephone in your house?’

  Percy Burr nodded emphatically and was then left alone in the postmaster’s room for a matter of four minutes. When the police gentleman came back, he seemed even more pleasant than he had been before, and Percy Burr, much to his relief, was allowed to depart; allowed to depart not quite as he had come, for upon his departure he was suddenly enriched by the presentation of a very new and very shiny two-shilling piece …

  Pike had spoken with Mrs Burr and Pike was satisfied as to the four letters which Percy had posted. They tallied, as did the others, with the letters posted immediately before and during the flashing of the light from above the post-box.

  After Percy Burr’s departure, Pike sat a moment in thought. So far all these persons had not only properly accounted for their posted letters but had, each of them, seemed as little like what might be the Holmdale Butcher as any man could imagine.

  And yet the letter had been posted, and the poster of the letter must be within this group. Must be so, that is, if the four specially picked rounders-up had not let anyone slip through their fingers. And Pike did not believe—could not believe!—that they had let anyone so slip. Each man of them had been most especially picked, and the job, in itself, had not been difficult. And the men themselves, when he had questioned them, had been certain and emphatically certain.

  And yet the letter had been posted and here was he, faced with the fact that there was only one more person to be interviewed, and this a boy, who would probably be—allowing for the normal differences in human animals—a replica of Master Percy Burr!

  There was, of course, the possibility that the Butcher—or at least the poster of the Butcher’s letter—had been one of the persons whom he had already seen and a person who, having posted another checkable letter about which to talk, had so disguised his bearing of the other all-important missive. This was, indeed, a new thought; an intriguing thought. But yet not a satisfactory thought. Pike, who relied more upon his well-trained and imagination-aided judgment of character than perhaps he knew himself, could not believe that any of the persons whom he had interviewed and let go were at all likely to fill his bill … With an effort, he banished the frown from his forehead and once more pressed the bell upon the post-master’s desk. Within a very few moments, the boy George Evans was with him.

  George Evans proved to be not only dissimilar in appearance but also in spirit from Percy Burr. George Evans was not in the least frightened. If anything he was most pleasurably thrilled. He felt that for once he was an important person. He was not used to being an important person and, as so often happens in higher spheres than George Evans’s, the fe
eling had gone seriously to his head.

  But he answered the questions put to him with commendable decision and rapidity … It seemed that George Evans was a messenger boy employed by The Market. At 3.15 that afternoon George Evans had been told by his immediate superior to go to the cashier’s office, and, as usual, collect the afternoon’s post … Here George Evans explained, in answer to a question, that the afternoon’s post usually consisted of some fifty or sixty letters of varying shapes and sizes which he found laid out upon one of the assistant cashier’s tables. His duty in this connection was simply to pick up the letters and carry them through The Market and outside and across the road to the letter box. When he had posted them, he went back. He had followed this programme today. In answer to more questions George Evans explained that this afternoon the post had been of about the usual size—that is the wad of letters had been ‘thickish but not too thick.’ He had been able to carry them all in one hand quite easily. Perhaps there had been fifteen letters; perhaps there had been thirty; he could not say … No, he had noticed nothing unusual until he had been commanded by one of the detectives to wait … George Evans dared to make so bold as to ask whether this hold-up by the police had anything to do with the Butcher and they-there letters which the Butcher was wont to write … But Pike was not listening to George. He was staring over George’s shoulder into vacancy and the rough partition wall which separated the postmaster’s room from the main office. And presently Pike slapped once upon the table with his palm; a slap so hard that it made the postmaster’s ink-wells rattle in their sockets.

  And Pike said, ‘Got it, by jing!’

  George Evans was dismissed with a similar gift to that which Percy Burr was still clasping hotly in his hand. It was explained to George that, if there was any trouble in The Market about his prolonged absence, it should be put right without delay …

  He had gone away with plenty to talk about but then so had the others. This was inevitable. And yet … And yet … Pike cursed himself for a fool. He ought to have known better. Now, however, he saw his way clear to one scheme at least which could be carried out with outside labour and therefore more efficaciously and less dangerously.

  He sat, completely immersed in thought, for perhaps five minutes, and then rousing himself, he reached out for the post-master’s bell and pressed it, this time with a long steady pressure. Walters came again, a Walters now briskness personified. Pike looked at him. ‘Get Blaine,’ he said, and very presently Blaine was with him.

  Blaine did not speak. He stood at the other side of the table looking down at his chief and he raised his eyebrows.

  Pike shook his head. ‘Nothing doing.’

  Blaine’s eyes opened wider. ‘Nothing!’ he said.

  ‘Nothing. And yet, Blaine, I feel those three fellows and Walters got the right people.’

  ‘But it doesn’t sound sense, sir, to me,’ Blaine began.

  ‘I know.’ Once more Pike shook his head. ‘But it’s right nevertheless.’ He leaned right forward over the table, his arms propping him up. He said:

  ‘Look here, Blaine. That letter was posted, but you might say it wasn’t posted by any of the people I’ve just seen …’

  Blaine shifted uneasily. ‘It’s no good, sir,’ he said as last. ‘I can’t see it.’

  ‘Nor could I,’ said Pike, ‘until just now.’ A little half smile fluttered fleetingly across his lean brown face. ‘We’ve been had, Blaine! Had well and had proper … That letter, Blaine, was posted by a certain person, but that certain person didn’t know what he was posting. He knew that he was posting letters, but what those letters were—there must have been about thirty which we can soon verify—he didn’t know. Most specially he didn’t know that among the letters was this.’ Here Pike tapped meaningly upon his inner pocket which contained a note-case holding the last of the Butcher’s effusions. ‘This fellow, Blaine, is getting a bit too much for me. He’s getting on my nerves. I must get him. I will get him! … But he’s fly! Somehow or other I feel that he’d got wind of this light stunt. He somehow or other managed to slip his letter among The Market’s letters so that the boy posted a bunch without knowing what was in the middle of ’em.’

  Blaine whistled between his teeth, a quick and yet long exhalation of breath.

  ‘Right, sir,’ said Blaine. ‘What’s to do now?’

  Pike got to his feet. His movement was so sudden that the chair upon which he had been sitting shot backwards from him with a wild protesting shriek across the stone floor.

  ‘I’m darned,’ said Pike, ‘if I know … At least I do know, but I haven’t got it straight yet … First, though, we’d better read the letters and check these people’s statements about them. I’ve got notes here. Just slip down and get ’em, will you? Not that we shall find anything …’

  They didn’t find anything.

  CHAPTER XI

  I

  THE finding of Marjorie Williams had been, you will remember, upon Tuesday, December 4th. Somehow, after it, the nerves of Holmdale were tautened to so tense a pitch that the two blank days which followed were almost unbearable. It was a time of terror in Holmdale; yet, when the terror seemed temporarily to cease, these tightened nerves did not relax. Rather, they went on, as it were, screwing themselves up. They had reached by the Wednesday night a point where, paradoxically enough, any actual horror would have been relief; relief, at least, from this waiting. They had borne with this crazy evil in their midst, and borne with it for many days which seemed more than twice the number of years. They had, in other words, got used to the Butcher. They expected the Butcher; and expecting the Butcher, they had come very nearly to the point—an hysteric point no doubt, but none the less real for that—when the news of a fresh activity of the Butcher’s was, to them, normality.

  It is said that the human animal can adapt himself to any constant circumstance; those who doubt this might well have their doubts refuted by an argument pointing to Holmdale during this time of the Butcher’s activities.

  After the Tuesday night, and Wednesday morning’s revelation of the Butcher’s magnanimity in procuring the release of Dr Reade, Holmdale was turned inside out. Holmdale was beaten about the head and laid prostrate. Men in Holmdale suspected their neighbours; many—as even Pike’s early report had shown—began, perhaps, to suspect themselves. Citizens of Holmdale would not venture out of their houses, even during dusk, unless they were in parties of five or six, and not even then unless such parties were eighty per cent. male and able-bodied male.

  Suspicion led to much trouble in Holmdale. There was the case of William Richards who, upon being accosted at 4.45 on the evening of Wednesday, December 5th by a stranger who asked him for a light, suddenly became more violent than ever in his life and smote and kicked the stranger until a patrol arrived, after which it was proved—not without much trouble—that the stranger was a genuine person and no stranger at all, but a man who, in normal circumstances, Mr Richards would have known by sight as one of the cashiers from The Market.

  And the futile spying went on, and the reports to the police by Mrs This of sinister activities by Mrs That, Mrs That being discovered, in every case, to have been for many months an enemy of Mrs This. And there were letters to the papers; letters not only to the Clarion—which in any save the most exalted cases refused to publish them—but to the big London daily and evening papers such as the Mercury, the Planet and the Looking Glass; letters signed ‘Ratepayer’, ‘Indignant’, ‘Victim’ and, of course, ‘Pro Bono Publico’.

  And there were questions in the House, showers and showers of questions; question upon question. The Home Secretary answered more questions during Wednesday and Thursday, December 5th and 6th, than ever before during his three-year term of office. He did not, as was only natural, answer them satisfactorily, but answer them he did. He said that the police ‘had the matter in hand.’ He said that ‘every step was being taken to ensure not only that there would be no repetition of the outrages, but also that there was
every reason to suppose that the perpetrator of the outrages would shortly be brought to book.’ An ungrammatical and inconclusive answer which satisfied no one save the Principal Clerk who had drafted it.

  And there were meetings daily of the Holmdale Company. At some of these meetings the police were represented and from others were completely absent.

  And there were leading articles in the Press, and two million four hundred and fifty-four dinner table conversations throughout the length and width of England and Scotland and Wales. There was even discussion in the Irish Free State.

  And, upon the Thursday morning, Lucas read a letter, offering assistance, from the chief of the Düsseldorf police. Lucas noted, not without patriotic gratification, that in his postscript the Düsseldorf policeman admitted that the Holmdale Butcher had made all of his proto-typical predecessors look like the smallest beer … And there was this, and there was that, and there was the other. And there seemed, even when the kindly, gay, winter sun shone brightly upon it, a loathely black shadow over Holmdale. Everyone in this pleasantly façaded little town was living with stretched nerves.