A Scream in Soho

by John G. Brandon

  Giving that overworked official a short but detailed account of what had taken place, he concluded his report by saying that as the superintendent would doubtless wish to take hold of the case he, personally, would be off back to his bed and endeavour to make up such of the time he had lost.

  But Superintendent Burman shook his head. “I don’t think so, Mac,” he said. “Since you’ve been in this right from the beginning, you may as well see it through. In any case I’m going away for a conference to-morrow, and I’m not letting this or anything else break into it. So you can go ahead with a satisfied mind that you’ll get no interference from me.”

  Which was, in Inspector McCarthy’s opinion, a good hearing; very definitely so. The “Sooper” was a good sort, but a man of old-fashioned methods and hide-bound with Red-tape and Regulations. If McCarthy was any judge of a case from its first leads, this was going to be one which called for something very different to the routine stuff Superintendent Burman would not only have applied to it himself, but would, if advising, have seen that the officer in charge did as well.

  “I tackle this on my own lines, sir?” he asked quickly.

  The superintendent eyed him askance for a moment. “Within reasonable bounds, McCarthy, yes, of course. But,” he added, sternly, “I hope you’ll employ none of those lone-handed methods of yours that, nine times out of ten, are as illegal as anything the criminals you’re chasing have done.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of anything of the kind, sir,” the inspector answered mildly.

  “Well, is there anything we can do?” the “Sooper” asked, agreeably surprised by this emollient answer.

  “Yes!” McCarthy snapped, a very different note in his voice. “Have this square cleared and lend me your car for a few minutes.”

  Before there could be any possible refusal of the latter request, he was inside the vehicle, shouted an order at its driver, and it was poking its nose through the crowd on its way towards Charing Cross Road.

  “Take it calm and quiet,” he said to the squad-car driver. “There’s a certain party just left the square that I want to pick up without letting him have the faintest suspicion that he’s being followed, if you get the idea?”

  “A suspect in this case, Inspector?” the chauffeur asked eagerly. Although his principal business was shooting that car along at any pace, legal or otherwise, that whoever it was in it might request, he was as much up on his toes when there was a good murder about as the next man wearing uniform.

  But, although usually the soul of affability to all and sundry, and particularly those beneath him in official status, the inspector did not answer the query—as a matter of fact he was quite pertinently asking himself another.

  “Now what the divil am I following this fellow up for?” he questioned himself acutely. “Beyond that I saw him once before to-night and his appearance interested me, I know nothing whatever about him. At the very moment that my duty demands that I ought to be poking my nose into that area and trying to read something useful into the stiletto and handkerchief I’ve got in my pocket, here I go leaving the ground and off on this wild-goose chase. There’s no sense in it; it’s just one of those damned senseless ‘hunches’ of mine which may lead anywhere—and most likely nowhere. The very thing I’ve just been cautioned by my superior officer against doing, and here I am at it almost before he’s got the words out of his mouth! These infernal ‘hunches’ of mine will be my downfall.”

  Chapter V

  In Which the Tragedy Deepens

  Notwithstanding this gloomy prognostication, the inspector settled himself down in the vehicle and kept a sharp eye upon both sides of Charing Cross Road. His eyes getting used to the gloom, he suddenly caught sight of his man heading in a westerly direction along Oxford Street. But McCarthy noted that although he was moving along at that usual leisurely pace of his at the moment, he must have travelled at a good speed to have got where he was in the time that he had.

  Once—it was just after he had passed Berners Street—his quarry stopped dead and swung round sharply, peering into the road. There was nothing to be seen but the dimmed light of a belated taxi and the squad-car which, on McCarthy’s instructions, kept well to the centre of the road. At the latter he looked intently for a moment.

  “Now, I wonder if those queer eyes of yours saw this wagon come into the square?” McCarthy apostrophized the figure. “They look the sort that don’t miss much, for all they’ve as much life in them as those of a corpse. If they did, it’s not much good my wasting time following you up in it, and, moreover, it’s going to arouse suspicion in you, which is the last thing I want.”

  On went the man again, leaving McCarthy in a quandary. He would have followed the job up on foot but for the fact that, clad as he was in a somewhat startling dressing-gown and slippers, he certainly was not going to get very far without the man realizing who was following him. And all the time the profound and disturbing feeling was growing upon him that no line of argument he could put forward could justify him in any way for wasting further time upon this utterly unknown man.

  But McCarthy was nothing if not stubborn, and having started out to follow a hunch he was loath indeed to alter his plan. However, in the circumstances, he saw nothing else for it and he was about to tell his driver to turn and make back for Soho Square and routine when his eye caught sight of a shadowy figure skulking out of Oxford Street into an alley which led behind a certain row of shop premises. In an instant McCarthy’s eagle eye had penetrated the gloom sufficiently to identify the amorphous shape. Even under these difficult circumstances he could not be mistaken in him as one of his regular “clients.” Here indeed was Heaven-sent aid.

  “Ah, my old and unesteemed friend, ‘Danny the Dip,’” he murmured joyfully to himself. “On the look-out for some place where they’ve been obliging enough to forget to put the padlock on the back door! Pull up!” he ordered sharply, and in an instant he was out of the cab and into the blackness of the alley. A moment later he had dropped a hand upon the shoulder of the predatory figure. “Come on, Daniel,” he advised sweetly. “It’s a fair cop!”

  Mr. Daniel Regan knew that voice as well—indeed, much better nowadays—as he knew the tones of his own mother.

  “I’ve done nuttin’, Inspector,” he whined. “I was just looking about for a place to doss. I’m right on the floor!”

  “It’s a crime to be broke, Dan, one of the worst of the lot!” the inspector informed him. “So I’m afraid you can’t get out of it that way. But,” he added as he propelled the slight figure back towards Oxford Street, “I might overlook it this time if you were in the mind to do a little job for me.”

  “I’ll do anythink, Inspector!” he was promptly informed. “I don’ want to go ‘inside’ again—not just yet. The bloke at Marlborough Street told me that next time I come up he’d give me a ‘twicer’ and I ain’t done a thing! ’Onest t’ Gawd, I ain’t! What is it y’r wantin’ done, sir?”

  “You see that gentleman over there?” McCarthy asked, pointing in the direction of the figure now well ahead of them. “You can’t, I know, but he’s there just the same.”

  “If he’s there I’ll pick him up, sir. Y’ don’t want to worry about that. I’ll follow the sound of ’is feet. I can ’ear a cat in the dark—I got to at my game.”

  “I want him ‘tailed’ until he’s treed for the night, Daniel, and I want the job done properly, and not just chucked the minute he goes inside any building out of which he may emerge again five minutes later, when he thinks he’s got shut of you. And unless I’m much mistaken, you’re following a very tricky gentleman, one who’ll give you the slip the first chance you let him have. Now, you do this job for me and bring it off successfully, and bring me your report or, better still, send it to me over the telephone early to-morrow morning and I’ll not only forgive your sins, past and present, but you’ll be on ten bob as well. Maybe a quid if you mak
e a real job of it,” he added hearteningly.

  “Could I ’ave a couple of bob to go on with, Inspector?” “Danny the Dip” pleaded hollowly. “Jest t’ git a cup of cawfee if there’s the chance while I’m on the job? I’m that ’ungry that me blasted guts seems to be ’angin’ down about me knees, it’s that sinkin’.”

  From the squad-car driver McCarthy borrowed shillings which he presented to the owner of the empty internals who grabbed at it avidly; the ravenous look in his eyes showed McCarthy that the tricky “Danny the Dip” was pulling no “spiel,” but was indeed “on the floor.”

  “You know the ’phone number?” he shot quickly as the hungry one started off upon the trail of the solitary figure lost somewhere upon the other side of the road. “My own, I mean?”

  “I don’t think I do, Inspector. I know the Yard’s.”

  McCarthy gave him his own ’phone number quickly, then “Danny the Dip” melted out of all sight into the blackness. McCarthy heaved a sigh as he climbed back into the car and ordered the driver to nip back into the square by way of Soho Street.

  “And there goes a quid of my hard-earned stipend! And what the blazes for is more than I could tell you,” he added ruefully.

  “Well, there’s one thing, sir, you won’t have to cough up if he doesn’t bring you something worth while,” the driver consoled.

  “I won’t have to,” McCarthy agreed, “but I know dashed well that I will! That’s the sort of soft-hearted goat I am. You see,” he concluded softly, “I’ve known what it is to be on the floor, and hungry, myself.”

  When the inspector returned to Soho Square he found it virtually cleared of the crowd; the autocratic, not to say high-handed, methods of the superintendent, plus the avoirdupois of another dozen or so uniformed men had speedily convinced the gaping lot that the sooner they were out of the way the better for them.

  In the case of those whom McCarthy had noted as persons engaged in pursuits which were, to say the least, dubious, one glance at them from Superintendent Burman’s cold, grey eyes was plenty. They dived off towards whatever holes they inhabited, before he might decide that he wanted to put them through the hoop about something or other; probably something long since past, and for their part, almost forgotten. The verdict of predatory Soho upon Superintendent Burman was that he never seemed to forget anything; you never could tell with him.

  Even the audience at the upper windows had apparently decided that nothing further of interest was going to happen that night. All he could dimly see in what was left of the fire-glow when he stepped out of the squad-car, was half a dozen or so of the more determined stickers at the farther corners of the square, the superintendent (fuming at being held up waiting for his car), the chief inspector, the sergeant and a couple of men who were to remain on duty at the spot during the night.

  “You’ve been a devil of a long time, Mac,” the superintendent growled. “What have you been up to?”

  “Not so long as I expected to be,” McCarthy returned equably and taking no notice whatever of the rather peevishly uttered, but quite justified question. He had long since discovered that the more you dodged the “Sooper’s” questions, the less you were likely to be asked.

  “I don’t see that there’s anything much that you can do here before daylight,” Burman went on. “These two men will stay on duty all night to see that nothing’s interfered with. It’s an extraordinary thing to me how the body was disposed of in the time they had between that scream being heard and the police getting here.”

  “It certainly is extraordinary,” McCarthy agreed. “I and the constable on beat must have been on the scene within two minutes of it—we made a dead-heat of it. Which is pretty fast work when you consider the black-out and that I was about to step into bed when it rang out. And as far as doing anything further here to-night, or, rather, this morning, goes, I agree with you that there isn’t much possible. Still, I’ll just take a look round to make sure. In any case I’ll be here long before any of the occupiers of these offices show up, and, incidentally, a good looking-over them won’t do any harm. By the way,” he added quickly to the sergeant, “has anyone been put on the back entrance to this place?”

  “I saw to that, sir,” that competent officer told him. “There’s a man there with orders to stick tight to his job till relieved.”

  “That’s the stuff,” McCarthy commended. “You can’t beat the C. Division for knowing their job—and doing it!”

  “Well, I’ll be off,” the superintendent said. “Let the C.I. have a report as soon as you’ve got anything tangible. Good night.”

  “There ye are, Sergeant,” McCarthy said with a whimsical shake of his head as the car whirled his superior officers out of the square. “Let the chief-inspector know as soon as you’ve found anything tangible in a case where there’s not even absolute certainty that there’s been a murder committed! In other words dig out something definite, which there doesn’t appear to be, let me know anything helpful and I’ll give ye my kind advice as to how to proceed further! Sufferin’ cats! Be thankful that you’re in uniform and haven’t got to pick up the jobs your superiors don’t fancy, and can get to bed when your own work is done. We’ll just take a look-see at your chap at the back. How do you get to it?”

  The sergeant pointed out a narrow alley a little farther down which evidently led to another, running parallel with that side of the square, and used by dustmen and other social servitors. As they passed through it, by the light of the sergeant’s torch McCarthy saw that a high wall ran along upon the side that the old house was situated. This, at the converging alley, gave place to a much lower one.

  “Where the devil’s Harper?” the sergeant muttered angrily. “He should have heard our steps and been out to see who it was, and dam’ quick at that, in a business like this.”

  The same thought had also occurred to McCarthy. “We’ve moved very quietly, Sergeant,” he reminded that irate officer. “It’s just possible that the sound hasn’t penetrated these thick walls?” he suggested.

  “He’d no right to be behind the walls. My orders were to watch the gate and nowhere else,” the other snapped. “He’s not a ‘rookie’ who doesn’t understand orders when they’re given to him. He’ll hear something from me that’ll penetrate his thick skull,” the sergeant growled. “I particularly cautioned him to be on the alert for anything.” Taking his torch he flashed it along the alley, where its beam came to rest upon the figure of the constable leaning against the gate-post and, to judge by his attitude, fast asleep!

  “Well, I’ll be——!” he gasped. “Asleep! I’ll finish him for this!”

  He hurried along towards the unmoving figure.

  “What the hell is this, Harper,” he hissed. “You’re for it, for this! I’ll break you…”

  “Steady!” McCarthy said in a quiet voice. “I doubt if you or anyone else will ever break him, Sergeant. Look at his face; he’s not asleep. He’s dead!”

  Chapter VI

  The Inside of the House

  To say that Detective Inspector McCarthy was galvanized out of his usual imperturbable sangfroid by this ghastly discovery was to underestimate completely the extent of that officer’s emotions, when he fully realized the situation. It needed but a moment’s examination by the light of the sergeant’s torch to settle definitely that the unfortunate constable had been in no way remiss in carrying out his duties. Far from it, he had undoubtedly been stabbed to an instantaneous death by someone who must have crept with absolute noiselessness up behind him, and, apparently, from the rear door of the house. Indeed, had Constable Harper not had his whole mind concentrated upon the alley he had been specifically instructed to watch, the likelihood was that he would have caught some sound of the killer creeping up behind him.

  One of the extraordinary things about it was that he had not gone down when the blade had penetrated his heart, as undoubtedly it had instan
tly, but, in some strange way, not at once apparent, the whole weight of his bulk must have come to rest fairly against the solid gatepost, which had supported it in an upright position.

  Of the method of his killing there could be no argument whatever; the first glance at his back showed that beyond any question of doubt. There was a small triangular-shaped hole in his broad back, immediately at the rear of his heart, from which the blood was still welling, slowly, and thickly. He must have died with scarcely the quiver of a muscle, and his face, now gone the grey of death, showed not the slightest distortion of pain.

  A groan broke from McCarthy’s lips.

  “What a cursed fool I was not to have realized the probability of that front door having been used as a getaway,” he said. “But its very appearance made me positive in my own mind that it hadn’t been. My first act should have been to have sent a couple of men to stand guard over the rear door and make sure of anyone who might’ve taken cover inside the house. If I’d done that,” he went on mournfully, “this poor fellow would have been alive now.”

  “It almost looks,” the sergeant said, in little more than a whisper, “as though the body of the murdered person must’ve been dragged inside after all. I couldn’t see any other way that they could have got rid of it in the time they had.”

  “It certainly does,” McCarthy admitted.

  Pulling his automatic from his pocket and releasing the safety-catch, he then turned the torch upon the back door. It was partly open.

  “Adding two and two together, there’s not much doubt as to how the killer escaped,” he muttered. “Just how long is it since you sent this poor fella round here, Sergeant?”