A Scream in Soho

by John G. Brandon

  “Not a minute after you went off in the squad-car, sir,” the sergeant informed him. “I knew that that was what you’d have done yourself if—if you hadn’t had something else on your mind just at the moment.”

  “That damned hunch of mine to follow that fellow,” McCarthy groaned. “In that case, Sergeant,” he went on, “whoever killed Harper must’ve left the house, committed the deed and walked quietly out through that alley and into Soho Square, while Superintendent Burman, the chief inspector and yourself were colloguing at the front door. Harper’s not been dead many minutes—his hands are not really cold yet.”

  “It must’ve been about that time,” the sergeant agreed.

  One thought flashed across McCarthy’s mind instantly: that whoever had done this second killing, it most certainly could not have been the man with the ice-blue eyes. Indeed, why he should be connected with the business in any shape or form was something the inspector would have been at a big loss to explain to anyone. However, he most certainly had not been connected with this ghastly second portion of it.

  “We’ll have to go through the whole place, Sergeant,” he said. “Though I’m afraid we’ll only draw blank.”

  “There’s a mighty big likelihood that we’ll find the other body somewhere at the back of that front door,” the sergeant said stubbornly. “At least, I think there is.”

  “You’re probably right,” McCarthy admitted, a trifle wearily. “I was wrong about the door having been opened; I’m probably wrong about that as well.”

  He led the way across a small paved yard to that partly-opened door, threw it right back and turned the torch into it. Owing to its conformation, it was impossible to see right through to the front door, despite its width, for the staircase which led from the hall was a particularly wide and magnificently carved one, as was also that portion of it which continued down into a basement. Across the hall there were also two pillars supporting arches which also helped to break the view.

  “You’ll notice, sir,” the sergeant mentioned as they stepped into the rear part of the hall, “that this back door has a spring lock.”

  “So much the better,” McCarthy said. “Shut it after you. If there’s anyone hidden in the basement, by any chance, they’ll have a bit of a job to slip us. In any case we’ll search that first—after we’ve made sure that there is, or is not, as it may be, a body in the hall.”

  Turning his torch to the floor, his eyes searching for blood spots upon the old and worn linoleum, the inspector led the way towards the extremely wide front door. No sign was there to be seen of anything out of the ordinary, and certainly nothing to suggest that the victim of whatever tragedy might have occurred outside, had been brought into the actual premises, themselves. Not one drop of blood was there to be seen, except in one place: on the outer fringe of the sunken doormat, which ran right across, and slightly under the door itself. That had evidently trickled down from the outer side of the door, and worked its way underneath.

  “Well,” McCarthy asked quietly, “are you satisfied now about the body being brought into the inside?”

  In the light of the torch the sergeant stared helplessly at the wide door mat, and that portion of the hall which lay between it and the stairs. The evidence of his own eyes was irrefutable; most certainly nothing, or no one, bleeding as they must have been doing, had been brought through that door.

  “There we are, Sergeant,” McCarthy said, but in no cocksure way, “let it be a lesson to ye never to be certain of anything, where murder is concerned. I was positive in my own mind that the door had never been opened, though why I was is more than I could tell you at the moment. But I was, and I was wrong. You were fairly sure that the body had been got away through it; you, too, were wrong. You can see for yourself how utterly impossible it would have been to do it without leaving, at least, a bloodstain or some tell-tale mark or other.”

  He next gave his attention to the huge, old-fashioned box lock of the door; from the size of it and its cumbersomeness, generally, it might well have been the original article, fitted when the house had been built. Its key must have been an enormous one, but, although it was locked, there was no sign of it. The door was also secured by two large iron bolts, top and bottom, both of which were shot. There was a spring lock set in above the old one.

  “Nice chance we’d have had of breaking in here,” the inspector commented.

  “Not much, and that’s a fact,” the sergeant agreed, “we’d have had to have made entry by one of the windows. Though, of course,” he corrected himself, “there’d be the door from that area where you found the knife and the handkerchief.”

  “We’d have found it bolted quite as securely as this one, I don’t doubt,” McCarthy said. “Anyhow, as we’re here you’d better bawl through the keyhole to the man on duty outside, and get him to send for the divisional-surgeon and the ambulance to remove Harper’s body to the mortuary. He’d better request your inspector to send some more men here at the same time. Tell him to instruct them to come to the back door with as little fuss as possible—and, under no circumstances, are any of them—any of them, mark y’—to so much as set foot inside that back gate until I’ve had a chance to go over the ground by daylight. And, moreover,” he added quickly as the sergeant was stooping to poke open the shield of a fairly large letter-slit to use it for transmitting his instructions, “for the love of Mike tell him to keep his hands off the door, and be careful not to let anyone else touch it. That may also have something to tell when I’ve a chance to get at it in daylight.”

  These instructions being faithfully, indeed almost belligerently, bawled through the keyhole to the man outside, the sergeant turned again to McCarthy.

  “What next, sir?” he asked.

  The inspector was giving his attention to the entirely modern Yale lock set in the upper part of the door.

  “That was the mode of entrance, of course,” he remarked. “The big lock, in all probability, is not used at all—a clumsy contraption, and quite out of date. Though, of course,” he added, “there’s just a chance that it may be locked as a sort of additional safeguard last thing in the evening by the charladies when they depart. They’d probably exit by that back door, and the boy you spoke of come in by the same way.”

  But the sergeant shook his head.

  “No, sir,” he said, very positively, “both the charwomen leave by the front door because I’ve seen them, and I’ve also seen the lad let himself in by the front door in the morning.”

  “Hm,” McCarthy uttered musingly. “In that case, it isn’t possible for this big lock and those bolts to be used at all. So the situation, on the face of it, looks to be this. If the man who committed the outside crime came through this way, he must have let himself in by a latchkey, then turned the key in the big lock, and shot the bolts. The reason for that is obvious: to gain time should the police, arriving hurriedly on top of that scream, attempt to force entrance here. Finding that they did not, and that he had time to take things calmly, he stayed quietly where he was, until he thought it safe to venture out and make a getaway by the back door and through that alley.

  “The possibilities are that there was another reason that made him wait for a bit before venturing forth. Just at that time the glare from the fire was at its height and he probably thought he’d be wiser to hang back for a bit in case someone spotted him in the glare. When at last he did take a chance it was to discover Harper on duty at the back gate. To get out he had to finish him, once and for all; a business that wouldn’t be over difficult to an expert knife-man, as the evidence seems to show that this fellow was. After that it would be comparatively easy to get well away from this place, or even mingle with the crowd and watch events.”

  “But—but Harper hadn’t been dead more than two or three minutes before we found him,” the sergeant objected.

  “Thereabouts,” McCarthy said, “but a man in a desperate
hurry can travel a divil of a long way in that time. It’s quite on the cards that he scaled the fence on the other side of the alley, and made off that way.”

  “That’s possible,” the sergeant said, casting his mental eye over the neighbourhood. “He could have got out and into Chapel Street if he knew his ground.”

  “I think we can take it for granted that he did that,” McCarthy said. “We’ll take a look about the place.”

  The rooms upon the first floor were all locked, as McCarthy expected to find; the one upon the immediate right-hand side upon entering the front door seemed to be the office of whatever management there was about the place. That, too, was locked.

  “And I expect that we’ll find them all the same right up to the attics,” McCarthy said. “If there is such a thing as a board where duplicate keys to the offices are kept, or even a master key, it will be in that office, and unless we’re going to break in every door in the place, which I don’t propose doing, we can’t get very much farther, as far as the offices are concerned. Unfortunately,” he added, a twinkle in his eye, “I haven’t my little pick-lock with me.”

  “We might break into this office and see if there’s a master key,” the sergeant said, though dubiously.

  “Break into a place without a properly issued warrant,” McCarthy said severely. “I am surprised at you, Sergeant! And, at that, a place which doesn’t show one exterior sign that a crime’s been committed in it. D’ye see any spots of blood, or bullet holes through the door or anything else to justify you taking such an action?”

  “No, sir,” the sergeant replied sheepishly.

  McCarthy shook his head, as though grieved beyond measure at even the thought of such an outrage.

  “You want to watch your step, Sergeant,” he said warningly. “One or two of those little larks, and you’ll be getting as bad a name as myself with the higher-ups. We’ll try the basement; I don’t suppose that will be locked up like a bank vault.”

  Descending the stairs, they came upon a set of rooms which must in bygone days have composed the kitchen and other domestic offices of the old house. By the look of them they must have been gloomy holes at the best of times, and at the present moment looked like so many dungeons. The doors were all flung wide open and it needed little more than a cursory glance to show that they were filled with useless lumber of all sorts, buried in the dust of years. In McCarthy’s opinion they certainly had nothing to tell but, before turning upstairs again, he gave the floorings by the doors a careful examination; they too were so thickly covered with dust that a recent footprint would have stood out as plainly as if stencilled.

  “There’s no one entered any of these rooms to-night, Sergeant,” he said didactically.

  At that moment a police whistle sounded at the rear of the house—the signal arranged by the sergeant to notify them on the arrival of the divisional-surgeon and the ambulance.

  “That’s them,” the sergeant said with complete certitude, and an equally complete lack of grammar.

  McCarthy made a dart up the stairs, taking three at a time.

  “Quick with that back-door key,” he snapped, “before they start rubbing out every footprint between the door and the back gate with their Number Ten’s! And when you go out,” he added, “watch that you step well to one side of the path clear of any possible spoor.”

  One glance the divisional-surgeon gave at that portion of the murdered Harper’s back which was lit by the torch.

  “I don’t know what the devil I’m supposed to do here,” he was beginning, when McCarthy interrupted him.

  “Now, Doctor, darlin’, don’t start bellyaching the minute you get here,” he said, a whimsical note in his voice. “’Tis the prerogative of the medical profession called from their warm, downy beds I know, but there’s quite a point or two that you can put me right on for a start.”

  “Damme if I see what they are,” the slightly mollified medico said, “as I understand it, you found the man within a few minutes of his murder, so you know the time of death as well as I do. That he’s been stabbed is as plain as a pikestaff—even a C.I.D. man could see that.”

  “Ah,” McCarthy said, “but what with, Doctor? That’s the point.”

  “What do you think it would be with—a safety razor blade?”

  “If you’ll take a look and not a cursory glance at what’s to be seen of that wound,” McCarthy went on, taking no notice of the gibe, “ye’ll notice that it’s three-cornered, that shows most definitely in the cut in the heavy cloth of the tunic.”

  “I can see that,” the medical man said, still grumpily. “What about it?”

  “I’d be glad to know just what class of weapon, in your opinion, the poor fella was killed with.”

  From his pocket the doctor took a magnifying glass and made a closer inspection of the wound.

  “A three-edged dagger, undoubtedly,” he said positively. “That’s clear enough. I should say that it carried a well-sharpened point which punctured the heart and caused death instantly.”

  From the pocket of his dressing-gown, McCarthy produced carefully the dagger he had found in the front of the house.

  “Could this be the weapon, Doc?” he asked quietly.

  The medical man took the stiletto gingerly by the haft and examined it. “It could be,” he pronounced, “and I should be inclined to say it is.”

  McCarthy shook his head. “Taking events chronologically as they happened, Doctor, it couldn’t very well be the actual weapon,” he said. “I found this a good half an hour, approximately, before Harper, here, was stabbed.”

  “Then if not that particular weapon, he was killed with one as like it as possible,” the doctor said. “By the way, would you like me to take a test from the blood on that weapon?”

  “That’s an idea,” the inspector said. “I’ll have it fingerprinted and sent on to you right away. There’s no need to keep you here any longer, Doctor. Get the body away to the mortuary as soon as you’re ready. Will you do the P.M. to-night—or rather this morning?”

  “I may as well,” the medical gentleman growled. “Get it done with, and if I’ve any luck I may get a bit of breakfast in peace, even if I can’t get any sleep.”

  “Well, Sergeant, I think I’m about through here for to-night,” McCarthy said, as they watched the rear light of the ambulance, followed by the divisional-surgeon’s two-seater, disappear out of the alley. Put a couple of men on here, back and front, and by that I mean two at each point, with instructions not to pass the gate at this point or touch the front door at the other. I’ll be here first thing in the morning to meet this youth that opens up. And when I say a couple of men—you’ll know I’ll mean by that: that I don’t want any further repetition of this wicked Harper business.”

  “You think there’s any possibility of that, Inspector?” the sergeant asked quickly.

  “I’m not chancing it,” McCarthy said.

  “It’s a mystery to me,” the sergeant murmured reflectively, as they made their way along the alley back to Soho Square. “What became of that body—the one that was hacked up in the front, I mean? I suppose,” he added, a trifle maliciously, “that you’re satisfied in your mind that it was a human that was carved up there, and not some foul brute carving up a dog, or something of that sort.”

  “Definitely,” McCarthy said imperturbably. “I could have told you then that it was a human who’d been killed, and, moreover, that he, or she, had had her jugular vein and probably other main arteries severed.”

  “Then why,” the sergeant was beginning, when McCarthy went on.

  “All I pointed out to you, Sergeant, was that there was no actual, visual evidence that it was a murder, and, come to that, there’s no more now. But a severed human jugular, or at any rate a main artery was the one thing which could account, not only for the quantity of blood there was, but the way it was splashed about
. In that connection it’s on one of the razor-like edges of that stiletto in which the blood is clotted thickest and not the point, as it would have been had it been a clean stab, such as Harper was killed with.

  “That showed that the victim was slashed viciously, which again suggests hatred, or possibly revenge, as a motive, which certainly wasn’t so in Harper’s case. And for the last thing, the air simply reeked of perfume when I got there, and I’d say an expensive one at that. It hadn’t had time then to evaporate. It isn’t the usual custom of men, even foreigners of the dandified class, to use perfume these days.”

  “I knew that scream came from a woman,” the sergeant said with conviction.

  “I think I pointed out to you once before to-night, that it might possibly prove to be the woman who was the killer,” the inspector said dryly. “Though I’m bound to say that it’s not over likely. Well,” he said, “we’ve got that something ‘tangible’ that the ‘Sooper’ wanted, if it’s only concerning the murder of poor Harper. But all the same it isn’t all wasted work. Now that we know that the front door was used we’ve got something definite to work on, and a very useful ‘something’ at that.”

  “I don’t just see,” the sergeant was commencing, when McCarthy interrupted.

  “We know that whoever escaped out of the square through that door, had a latch-key which admitted them to the place. That narrows things down to a comparatively small circle of people. According to all the rules, Sergeant, that fact ought to put someone in the dock on the capital charge, sooner or later.”

  “It should that,” the sergeant admitted readily. “I didn’t think of that for the minute, Inspector.”

  “But the unfortunate thing about murder, Sergeant,” McCarthy pursued in that whimsical tone of his, “is that it is never committed according to any rules. The thing that you’re positive is going to happen is generally the last thing that does. If it turns out any different in this case, then it’ll be the exception which proves the rule.”