They sat before a blazing fire in Miss Marable’s best front room. ‘Now,’ said Pike, and held out his hand.
Curtis rose, went to his heavy frieze overcoat which lay across a chair and from the pocket of the overcoat produced a square, foolscap-sized envelope, protected by thin sheets of cardboard and bound about with string. He took out a pocket-knife and cut the string. From the envelope he took, gingerly, something which he laid upon the little table which his superior had set down before the hearth.
Pike got to his feet and bent over the table and examined a square sheet of yellow paper upon which there were many lines of writing—peculiar writing in peculiar ink.
Pike grunted; raised his head; bent again to his examination.
‘Not bad!’ he said. ‘Not bad at all!’ He took from his pocket a wallet and from the wallet another sheet, neatly folded, of the same coloured paper—the original of the first ‘Butcher’ letter. He unfolded it and smoothed it out with careful hands and laid it beside the sheet already on the table.
Curtis came and stood beside him and now they both pored.
‘It’s good!’ said Pike at last … ‘Who did you get to do it? Carruthers or Maxwell?’
‘In the end,’ said Curtis, ‘Mr Maxwell did it. He didn’t seem very satisfied with it himself, but I thought it was a real winner, sir.’
‘Got the envelope?’ said Pike.
Curtis nodded and produced from another pocket in the overcoat another and similar packet. ‘All three envelopes are here, sir,’ he said, ‘and the other two copies of the letter.’
‘Are they all as good as this?’ said Pike.
‘Every bit,’ said Curtis, ‘no difference between ’em. Not that a man’s eye could tell anyhow … And I saw Mr Lucas, sir, and he said to tell you that he thought your draft was very good. He only altered a couple of words.’
Pike grunted. ‘Yes, I saw that. He’s right. Just read it out, Curtis, and let’s listen to it …’
IV
The telephone in Miss Marable’s hall rang shrilly. Miss Marable went to it herself and within a moment was running up the stairs.
Miss Marable knocked at Pike’s door and, most unusually, not awaiting reply, walked in.
Pike was in his favourite position upon the window seat. He turned and looked at the sound of the door opening and got to his feet. ‘Good-morning,’ he said.
‘Oh, Mr Pike!’ said Miss Marable. ‘They’ve just telephoned from the Police Station. It was the Chief Constable himself speaking.’ Miss Marable was a little breathless. ‘He seemed very urgent. Would you go round at once, please. He said that three times.’ Miss Marable was a little pinker than usual in the cheeks. ‘He said that three times,’ she repeated, ‘and then rang off.’
Miss Marable departed. Pike leisurely changed slippers for the boots with the very shiny toe-caps. He smiled to himself; a smile which was, at first, merely a twitching of the corners of his mouth, but which, by the time that the boots were on and he was descended Miss Marable’s stairs, was almost a grin.
But there was no smile, nor hint of a smile, upon his brown, lean, lantern-shaped face as he went in to the room which, for weeks which seemed to Mrs Jeffson as many years, had been no use as a parlour at all.
The Chief Constable was there, and Davis and Farrow were there and, of course, Jeffson. They all, even Jeffson, were crowded round the deal table. So intent were they that Pike stood there for fully a minute before anyone noticed his presence. It was the Chief Constable who saw him first.
‘There you are!’ said the Chief Constable. He seemed changed. His heavy face was lean and sagging and now it had lost all of its colour. The pouches under his eyes were like black bruises. His voice, which trembled like his hands, seemed to be hiding fear under a mask of irritability. ‘Look at this, Superintendent. Look at this!’
Pike came nearer to the table, halted suddenly and stared in excellent astonishment. ‘Another “Butcher” letter!’ he said.
The Chief Constable nodded. Brought round by hand about half an hour ago, he said.
Farrow, without a word, picked up the yellow sheet by its corner; held it so that Pike could read. Pike read, half-aloud:
DEAR POLICE,—I regret to say that I find this life of inactivity quite insupportable. You may or may not be glad to hear this. I fancy that you will be both. You will be sorry because you will doubt your ability to prevent my activities and glad because you will not be kept in this dreadful suspense.
In order to make things really pleasantly easy for you I hereby announce my intention of carrying out the seventh of my—shall we call them removals?—tomorrow (Monday, the 16th December).
I am afraid that last time I gave you warning of a day my sense of humour got the better of me, and knowing that you would be expecting me to carry out my work at night, I carried it out in broad daylight, thus completely confounding you.
This time, however, I will descend to no such mean tricks and I hereby give you full warning that the times between which my work will be executed (‘executed’ is rather good, don’t you think?) will be 7 and 10 p.m.
As usual I have sent copies of this letter to dear Sir Montague and to the Holmdale Clarion.
Tolerantly yours,
THE BUTCHER
P.S.—I find myself in an extraordinarily kind mood today. I cannot bear to think of you poor Police trying, in despair, to cover the whole of Holmdale for three hours on Monday night. So, in addition to telling you the date and time, I will tell you, approximately, the place. The job will be done between the junction of Market Road and Forest Road at the north-western end and the Wooden Shack at the southern end. Don’t worry about your curfew. Nothing like this is going to stop me!
THE BUTCHER
‘Well!’ said Pike. ‘I’ll be jiggered!’
He thought for one horrid instant that the astonishment and concern in his voice had been overdone, but he looked round at the faces of the other men and found in them no suspicion …
CHAPTER XVIII
I
ON Monday the day was a clear day of bright, hard, frosty sunshine. But with evening, there came, with that frequent paradox of English climate, a drop in temperature. As early as four o’clock the mists began to gather again. By five, all Holmdale was shrouded in a fleecy blanket of white fog. By six o’clock, even in the brilliantly lighted patch before The Market, it was difficult for a man to see more than ten yards ahead of him: by seven o’clock it was impossible; he could not see more than five.
At a quarter past seven at the junction of Collingwood Road with Market Road, Blaine, walking at a pace inconsistent with the visibility, ran into a living organism as solid as himself.
‘Uh!’ Blaine grunted; then reached out a hand to grope, but even as he reached out his hand, another hand clutched its shoulder.
Detective Officers Frank Blaine and George Curtis recognised each other. They smiled; then laughed softly.
‘I thought,’ said Blaine, ‘that you were the Butcher.’
Curtis laughed. They fell into step. They proceeded down Collingwood Road and turned, crossing the road until they were on the grass plot facing the northerly façade of The Market. The fog was very thick here; so thick that barely could a man see his own hand at arm’s length. They halted.
‘About here, was it?’ said Curtis.
‘Anywhere’s along this side,’ said Blaine. He craned his head forward between his square shoulders and stared at the blurry blobs of light which were the lamps before The Market. ‘That’s what he said.’
‘We’d better then’—Curtis coughed as the fog tickled his lungs—‘stay put. That right?’
‘May as well … Yes, when you bumped your damn great hulking carcase into mine I thought you were the “Butcher.” I was just goin’ to tell you that anything you might say …’
Through the fog Curtis peered curiously at his companion. ‘You don’t mean,’ he said, ‘that you think this is a reel Butcher stunt we’re on?’
&nbs
p; There was sudden movement beside him as Blaine turned sharply round. ‘What the hell are you talkin’ about? Real Butcher stunt? What d’you mean? Of course it is …’
‘’Tisn’t!’ Curtis, although with enough sense of duty to keep his ears alert, was yet delighted that for the first time for many months he was ahead of his colleague. He said:
‘Mean to say A. P. hasn’t told you?’
Blaine grew annoyed. ‘Told me what?’ He tells me as much …’ He broke off coughing. The fog had got down his throat.
‘He doesn’t then!’ Curtis was pleasantly triumphant. ‘’Course he would’ve done in time. But he hasn’t had time.’
Through the fog, brushing aside its white billows with black bulk, Curtis moved closer. His ham-like hand closed its sausage-like fingers upon Blaine’s arm. He whispered into Blaine’s ear:
‘That Butcher letter—that last one, the one that come yesterday—that’s a fake, boy!’
‘Get out!’ said Blaine.
‘’Tis then!’
‘Get out!’ said Blaine again, his tone incredulous. ‘Why, I was in the Station just after A. P.’d left and Jeffson shewed it to me. I’ve seen too many of those “Butcher” letters not to know one when I see it.’
Curtis’s fingers dropped the arm; began to tap upon Blaine’s shoulder. ‘That letter, I tell you,’ he said, ‘was written by Foxy Maxwell. I was there while he did it yesterday. If I’d seen you since I’d ’ve told you. So’d A. P., only he hasn’t had a minute.
‘Well, I’ll be …’ Blaine said what he would be. And, when he had recovered from the first shock of astonishment, asked almost querulously:
‘But w’y, w’y?’
‘My boy,’ said Curtis, ‘A. P.’s good. You and me know that. But this is the best he’s ever done. It’s pyschological.’
‘It’s what?’ said Blaine. ‘You mean psychological.’
‘You know very well,’ said Curtis angrily, ‘what I mean. Anyway it’s that. What A. P. reckons—he told me all about it last night—is this. We’ve got these what he calls possibles down to four: the old parson, Monty Flushing, Miss Finch of the Clarion and—and’—here Curtis dropped his voice still lower—‘you know who!’
‘You mean Jeffson?’ Blaine’s voice was the ghostliest of whispers.
Curtis coughed. ‘Blast this fog!’ he said. ‘Yes, that’s right! Well, that’s something, isn’t it? We started with five or six thousand and we’ve got down to four. There’s not many men at the Yard that would’ve done that in the time. In fact, no one would except A. P. …’
‘Yes. Yes.’ Blaine was impatient. ‘But what about the letter? What’s the idea?’
‘Can’t you see?’ Curtis was all bland superiority. ‘A. P. knew this letter’d be seen by all of ’em except Rockwall—and he’ll get to hear of it. Now, any one of those four’s the “Butcher,” isn’t it?’
‘Not,’ said Blaine the cautious, ‘is. May be!’
‘Well, I say is,’ said Curtis. ‘But I’ll take your point. One of those four’s most likely to be the ‘Butcher’ isn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ said Blaine.
‘And all of those four’ve heard about this new Butcher letter, and mostly seen it. Well, the one that is the “Butcher,” what does he think? … Mind you, Blainey, this Butcher is a lunatic, don’t forget that! It’s like what A. P. was saying to me last night. He’s a loony in one patch like. Well, he gets to hear that some other fellah has been writing Butcher letters and bragging Butcher brags … Got it?’
‘You mean,’ said Blaine in an eager whisper, ‘that he’ll be—well, sort of puzzled and jealous all at the same time?’
Curtis was approving. ‘They’re almost A. P.’s own words. And as I said to A. P. when he told me about the scheme’—Curtis was very important—‘That’s good, I said, “Good!” You’ve given the place, you’ve given the date, you’ve given the time and you’ve done the letter so that even if the “Butcher” sees it himself he won’t know that he didn’t write it. D’you see it now?’
‘You mean,’ said Blaine slowly, still in a tense whisper which was so deadened by the fog that it reached Curtis’s ear as a wraith of a sound. ‘You mean that A. P.’s expecting this fake letter to draw the real Butcher, because he’ll want to go out and see what all this really is?’
‘Exactly,’ said Curtis. ‘Mind you, boy, A. P. hasn’t told you, so you’d better not know. You and me aren’t hardly even supposed to talk.’
‘I know that,’ said Blaine. ‘A. P.’s drummed it into me enough. I s’ppose it’s because of this Jeffson possibility.’
Curtis nodded. ‘May be, but I think A. P. ’d’ve made the same principle even if Jeffson hadn’t come into it. By God, boy, s’ppose it is Jeffson!’
‘My old mother,’ said Blaine, ‘used to say to me “You never know!” And she was right. The more I live and the more I get about, the more I know I never do know.’
‘Bloody clever of A. P. whichever way you look at it! Jeffson told me there was the hell of a row between him and the C. C. when he suddenly said, the other day, that he wanted the curfew business after all. And here it’s been on for three nights voluntary and it’s taken on—well, you can see for yourself how it’s taken!’
Blaine coughed. ‘Ah! Fog’s helped it though.’
‘Never mind,’ Curtis said, ‘what’s helped it! It’s worked. And because it’s worked A. P.’s scheme looks like coming off! There’s no one out, but there may be. And if anyone comes along the road mentioned in this fake letter—specially if it’s one of the four—well, there you are! We’ll know, metamphorically speakin’, who the “Butcher” is, and that’s a good thing to know!’
‘I should say,’ said Blaine in a hearty whisper, ‘it damn-well was!’
‘Mind you,’ said Curtis, ‘except for knowin’, A. P.’s not sure that he’ll be any better off for this stunt even if it does work …’
Blaine interrupted. ‘You know,’ he grumbled, ‘you’re like a book of crossword puzzles or something tonight. What’re you talkin’ about now?’
‘He,’ said Curtis sententiously, ‘that has ears to ’ear, let him hear! A. P. says that although he may find out tonight he may not be able to do anything. You see, Blainey, this Butcher’s clever sort of a devil and although he may come down he won’t come down without a proper excuse. A. P. said to me last night, he said: “You see, Curtis, when he does come—if he does come—he’ll have some boiling good reason, but that won’t worry me. I daresay,” he said to me, Blainey, just like that, “I daresay, in a manner of speaking, we shan’t be any better off. But we shall, really, because we’ll know …”’
Curtis’s flow was cut short by a fit of coughing. The fog was thicker. It no longer swirled round them in now thickening, now thinning eddies, but pressed close about them like a malign and impalpable suffocation.
‘Getting cold,’ Blaine growled, ‘let’s walk.’
They walked up and down, up and down, two large looming shapes in the white darkness. Every now and then they stopped to listen; then resumed their walk. The warmth came back to their feet and, in some degree, to their bodies, but the fog did not lift. It got into their eyes and made them smart; it got into their noses and made them feel as if they were breathing harsh wool; it got down their lungs until they coughed; they had to strangle their coughs for fear of noise.
Every now and then Blaine would ask Curtis, or Curtis would ask Blaine: ‘What’s the time?’
And this went on until with the last asking, Blaine said: ‘Nine-fifteen. I wonder …’
‘S’sh!’ said Curtis and gripped his arm with iron fingers.
They stood motionless. Not a sound came to them. Blaine shifted uneasily, but Curtis’s fingers tightened their clamp; held him quiet.
‘Listen!’ said Curtis.
Suddenly, at first muffled by the deadening curtain of fog until they were only the phantoms of sound, but gradually growing until they were living and human and recognisable, ther
e came the sound of rapid, crisp footsteps.
Blaine started forward.
‘Wait!’ Curtis whispered. ‘A. P.’s there. Over the other side. Wait!
They waited. As the footsteps seemed to draw abreast of them, beating their way into the extra whiteness which shewed where The Market’s lamps were placed, they heard other footsteps, coming, on an instant, out of nothing; footsteps which their trained ears recognised.
The first lot of footsteps ceased abruptly. The second ceased also …
‘Come on!’ said Blaine and went.
They guided themselves off the grass and on to the road and crossed the road by that lightening in the fog where it was thinned by the glow of The Market’s lamps. As they drew near, they heard Pike’s voice. They drew nearer, going cautiously and on tiptoe. The voices they could hear now that they were closer were cast in pleasant enough tones. But they knew. They were closer now, and not only their ears but their eyes told them that one of the figures was Arnold Pike. But they were looking at the other …
They halted. Blaine stood, turning his head sharply to hiss into Curtis’s right ear:
‘Well, I’m … May God strike me dead!’
II
At half-past eleven that night, Curtis and Blaine sat, each upon the edge of his chair, in Miss Marable’s lounge. Pike, his back to the crackling fire, surveyed them. He said, looking at Blaine:
‘So Curtis put you wise, did he?’
Blaine nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’
There was a moment’s silence, then Pike spoke again. He said: looking at Curtis this time:
‘You saw!’
Curtis grunted affirmation. He looked at his chief with some anxiety. Pike’s face seemed longer and leaner and the lines of his frown seemed as if they had been cut into his forehead with a graver’s chisel.
It was Blaine who broke the silence.
‘What’s going to happen, sir?’ he said. ‘What can we do now that we do know?’
Pike shrugged; a gesture angry and bitter and more than a little helpless. For the second time during this case, he used an oath. ‘I’m damned,’ he said, ‘if I know! I hope I shall tomorrow. I’m going to sleep on this, or to bed on it. You two get off now and carry on with your ordinary duties, saying nothing to anyone tomorrow. If I’m not here, it means I’m up in town. Good-night, now!’
Murder Gone Mad Page 21
