by Rennie Airth
Madden put a cup and saucer in front of each toy, then placed the jug of water in the centre of the circle.
“Someone will have to pour,” he announced.
Mary started forward, but Dr. Blackwell checked her with a gesture. The little girl was stirring. She climbed slowly off the doctor’s lap. Keeping a wary eye on Madden she approached the circle of figures and dropped to her knees in front of them. She studied the group for several seconds. Then she picked up the teddy bear and placed him at the head of the circle near Madden’s feet. Her eyes met his. Whatever she saw in the inspector’s sombre glance seemed to reassure her and she lifted the jug of water and began to pour.
Dr. Blackwell rose. “I must go and see my patient,” she said, without urgency. “Can I leave you here for a little while, Inspector?”
He nodded in answer.
“Sophy, I’ll be back soon.”
The child, absorbed in the business of filling the cups, made no reply.
When the doctor returned half an hour later she found the arbour deserted. Mary was standing at the edge of the terrace with folded arms looking out over the garden. Helen Blackwell joined her and saw Madden and Sophy, hand in hand, at the bottom of the lawn, near the orchard.
“Did he take her down there?” she asked the maid.
“No, she took him, ma’am.” Mary smiled. “She’s showing him the garden.”
“Is she talking to him?” Dr. Blackwell hardly dared to hope.
“No, just pointing.”
As she spoke, the little girl lifted her hand and indicated the weeping beech at the edge of the lawn. They went there together and vanished from sight beneath the drooping branches. After a minute they reappeared. The child stood close to Madden with her head bowed while the inspector bent over her and carefully picked the twigs from her hair.
“He’s talking to her,” Mary observed.
Dr. Blackwell said nothing. She found herself feeling breathless in the hot midday sun.
“Let’s go inside.” She drew the maid away. “I don’t want her to see us watching.”
From the drawing-room window they observed the little girl lead Madden back to the terrace. At the bottom of the steps she halted and reached up her arms to him. He lifted her easily, and in a moment she had attached herself to him, winding her arms about his neck and pressing her cheek to his shoulder. He stood still as though stunned, then turned and slowly mounted the steps to the terrace. Helen Blackwell saw the tears on his cheeks.
“Oh, ma’am . . .” Mary said beside her.
The doctor moved away from the window.
“Mary, would you go and ask Cook to get Sophy’s lunch ready?” she said. “I’ll bring her through in a moment.”
As soon as the maid had gone Helen Blackwell sat down in a chair and lit a cigarette. She felt drained of energy. She wanted to sit quietly and think.
But there was something she had to do at once, an urgent problem that needed solving, and after less than a minute she extinguished the cigarette, ran her fingers through her hair and went out to the terrace to speak to Inspector Madden.
10
She wants to send the child to Scotland? Och, John, I can’t let her do that.”
“It might be the best thing, sir.”
They were sitting in what Mr. Poole, the landlord of the Rose and Crown, called the snug bar, a panelled recess at the back of the taproom. He had set it aside for the use of the police. The main bar was shut—it was the middle of the afternoon—but they could hear the barmaid at work cleaning up. She was singing a song Madden remembered from the war.
K-K-K-Katy, my beautiful Katy,
You’re the only g-g-g-girl that I adore . . .
“What will I tell the Yard?”
“What Dr. Blackwell told me. It’s her professional opinion. The child would be better off with her family—she still has a brother alive, remember—and also more likely to recover if she’s away from here.”
Sinclair frowned discouragingly. “You say her aunt and uncle are coming down from Scotland for the funerals?”
“Yes, on Friday. Dr. Blackwell would like Sophy to go back with them.”
“The child hasn’t said a word yet?”
“No, but Dr. Blackwell thinks she will soon. Start speaking.”
“Well, then?” Sinclair raised his eyebrows.
“The doctor believes it’s unlikely she’ll talk about what happened that night. In fact, she may have blocked it out of her mind. Repressed memory, I believe it’s called.” Madden paused. “Dr. Blackwell’s already spoken to someone in Edinburgh—a psychologist—who could start treating the child right away.”
“Takes a lot on herself, your Dr. Blackwell does.”
“Not mine, sir. Very much her own woman, I’d say.”
“Would you, now!” Sinclair snorted. “Damn it, everything she says makes sense.” He took out his pipe and began to fill it. “This doctor in Edinburgh . . . ?”
“Another woman, sir.” Madden smiled. “A Dr. Edith Mackay. She had a full medical training and then studied to become a psychologist. Apparently she specializes in children. Sophy’s aunt and uncle are only half an hour out of Edinburgh. She could see the child regularly.”
“Very well.” The chief inspector held up his hands in surrender. “But if the girl says one word about what happened that night . . .”
“Her uncle will get in touch with the Edinburgh police immediately. Dr. Blackwell promised that.”
Sinclair lit his pipe. “Anything else?”
“Only this.” Madden took two folded pieces of paper from his jacket pocket. “Dr. Blackwell gave Sophy a pad and some crayons and she started drawing immediately. Always the same thing, the doctor said.” He handed the papers to Sinclair who examined the childish scribbles. The same balloon and string design covered both sheets of paper with little variation.
“What does it mean?”
“Dr. Blackwell has no idea. But she thought we ought to see it.”
The chief inspector handed the papers back. He said, “I’m about to break the law. I’m going to ask Mr. Poole to serve us a drink. Then I’ll tell you what happened at the Yard this morning.”
Like the curate’s egg, it could have been better and it could have been worse.”
Sinclair set two glasses of whisky on the table in front of Madden. He shut the hatchway to the taproom, picked up his pipe from the ashtray and sat down.
“Parkhurst started off chairing the meeting”—Sir George Parkhurst was the assistant commissioner, crime; effectively head of the CID—“but he only spoke for ten minutes. Held forth on the undesirability of massacres in the Home Counties, pointed out that the words ‘police baffled’ were already appearing in the press, and then handed everything over to Bennett.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” Bennett was the Deputy Assistant Commissioner. He had a reputation for sharpness among detectives who’d come in contact with him.
“Up to a point.” Sinclair glanced sideways at Madden. “Chief Superintendent Sampson was also present, and he’ll be taking a hand in the investigation.”
“Sampson of the Yard?” Madden kept a straight face.
“You may find it amusing,” Sinclair said acidly, “but take it from me, the man’s a menace. I dare say he’s already pictured the headlines. ‘Another triumph for Sampson of the Yard!’ ”
“They’re not putting him in charge, are they?”
“Not yet—but he hasn’t suggested it. He wants to sniff around a little first, get the feel of it. After all, other headlines are possible. ‘Sampson of the Yard Falls Flat On His Face.’ ‘Sampson of the Yard Doesn’t Know His Arse From a Pineapple.’ ” The chief inspector looked wistful. “He’s playing it canny for the moment. He and Bennett will oversee the investigation, but it’s still ours.”
He tapped out his pipe in the ashtray.
“I gave them a summary of our inquiries to date. That we’ve no reason to suspect any local involvement in the murder
s. We think they were killed by an outsider. Norris, from Guildford, was there. He still believes more than one man was involved. Said the victims downstairs and Mrs. Fletcher were almost certainly killed by different people. Sampson agreed with him.”
“Why did he do that?” Madden scowled.
“To create difficulties for us?” Sinclair shrugged. “Who knows? I should warn you, he doesn’t care for me. Wouldn’t mind seeing me fall flat on my face. The point is, we’re still officially searching for more than one man. So be it.”
He emptied his glass.
“But the important thing was, Bennett supported us on the bayonet theory. Over Sampson’s objections, by the way—he said the medical evidence was inconclusive. Did you know there were more than sixty thousand soldiers in mental hospitals at the end of the war? Most of them shell-shocked, poor devils, but there must have been some of the other kind. Bennett’s going to talk to the War Office. We’ll get a list of patients who’ve been released and start running them down. He’ll also ask them to look into Colonel Fletcher’s military service record. Did he have a run-in with one of his men? Some deep-held grudge?” The chief inspector shook his head. “Motive’s still our main problem. I told them that. Revenge is a possibility, but this notion of an armed gang losing their heads and going berserk is pure balderdash, and Bennett knows it. Those killings were deliberate.”
11
At the coroner’s inquest held in Guildford the following day, verdicts of murder by person or persons unknown were returned in the case of all five victims. The coroner, an elderly man with red-veined cheeks and a drooping eyelid, spoke of the horror felt “not only in Highfield, but here in Guildford” at the “heartless, brutal murders of Colonel and Mrs. Fletcher.”
“He seems to have forgotten about the maid and the nanny,” Sinclair remarked to Madden afterwards. “Not to mention Mr. Wiggins, the poacher.”
They were standing in the street outside the courtroom. Madden nodded to the Birneys as they went by with a group of villagers, heading for the station. The public benches had been crowded.
Helen Blackwell had been one of those testifying. She had arrived with Lord Stratton and a tall, silver-haired man whom she seemed to resemble. Now she brought him over.
“Chief Inspector, I’d like you to meet my father, Dr. Collingwood.” Sinclair shook hands. “And this is Inspector Madden.”
Dr. Collingwood told them he had been driving through France with friends when word of the murders had reached him. “I thought I’d got over the shock, until I drove past Melling Lodge yesterday evening.” He had the same dark blue eyes as his daughter, and he looked at her with concern. “My dear, this has been harder on you than you realize. You seem quite worn out.”
It was true, Madden thought. She was paler than he remembered, tense and stiff-backed, and for the first time her manner with him was cool and distant.
“Don’t treat me like a patient,” she scolded her father. “Anyhow, my main worry’s over now, thanks to Mr. Sinclair.” She turned to the chief inspector. “I can’t thank you enough for agreeing to let Sophy go to Scotland.”
Sinclair tipped his hat to her and bowed. “You should thank Inspector Madden, ma’am. He was a most persuasive advocate.”
Dr. Blackwell looked at her watch. “We ought to go. Sophy gets anxious if I’m away too long.”
Dr. Collingwood moved off towards Lord Stratton’s Rolls Royce, which was parked nearby. Sinclair accompanied him. Dr. Blackwell lingered.
“I almost forgot,” she said. “Sophy keeps doing those squiggles. But today she produced something different. Or, rather, it’s the same, only bigger.”
She opened her handbag and took out a sheet of drawing paper. It bore a single, enlarged version of the smaller figures the child had drawn earlier.
“I can’t think what she means by it.”
She gave the drawing to Madden, who studied it.
“It looks like a balloon,” the doctor said. “But why does she keep repeating it?”
Madden stared at the drawing, frowning. “Has she ever done anything like this before?”
“I don’t think so. Mary says not. To tell the truth, I haven’t the faintest idea what’s going on in her mind.” Or yours, Inspector, Dr. Blackwell thought, as she turned away and went off to join her father and Lord Stratton.
12
Walking briskly, briefcase in hand, Chief Inspector Sinclair threaded a path between the headstones and joined Madden where he was standing in a corner of the Highfield churchyard.
“Has something happened, sir?” Madden had been expecting him earlier—in time for the funeral service—but there had been a message from Scotland Yard to say the chief inspector would be delayed.
“Later, John.”
Sinclair nodded to Lord Stratton, who was with a small group of mourners making their way from the graveside. The sexton was already at work filling in the twin graves of Charles and Lucy Fletcher. A silent line of black-clad villagers filed through the churchyard gate.
“I’ve something to show you.” He hefted his briefcase.
Lord Stratton led one of the group aside, a lean, sun-tanned man with greying temples.
“That’s Robert Fletcher, the colonel’s brother,” Madden told the chief inspector. “He and his wife came down from Edinburgh yesterday. They’re going to leave things at Melling Lodge as they are for the time being. They want to get Sophy back with her brother as soon as possible.”
They watched as the two men crossed the churchyard to where a black-suited figure stood in the shade of a cedar tree. Madden recognized the florid features of Sir William Raikes, the Lord Lieutenant.
“I’d better go, too, and pay my respects to his nibs.” Sinclair glanced at his companion. “No need for you to trouble yourself, Inspector.”
Madden was glad to be left on his own. The funeral scene took him back to his youth. He’d been too young to remember his mother’s death, but his father had perished in a barn fire when he was sixteen. The boy, home on holiday from the Tauton grammar school where he was a scholarship pupil, had helped to drag the body from the blazing timbers. The sight of the charred corpse, shocking to him then, now seemed like a foretaste of what awaited him on the fields of northern France. His father had been buried in late summer. It had been a day like today.
Helen Blackwell’s face, white beneath a veil, appeared before him. “Inspector, I’ve come to say goodbye.” Her voice was strained. “My father and I are going up to Yorkshire to stay with friends for a few weeks. I imagine you’ll be gone by the time we return.”
Madden stared at her. Finally he spoke. “Yes, we’re moving out this weekend. The Surrey police will stay on for a time.”
“I hardly dare ask—have you made any progress?”
“Some . . .” He checked himself. He felt the need to be open with her. “Hardly any, I’m afraid. It’s a case where the answers aren’t obvious.” He wanted to say more, to detain her further, but the words dried in him.
She smiled briefly and held out her hand. He felt her firm grip for the last time.
“Goodbye, then, Inspector.”
She rejoined her father. Madden followed her figure with his gaze as they left the churchyard together.
It makes fascinating reading, doesn’t it?”
Sinclair stood with his hands on his hips while Madden sat studying the typewritten pages. Both men had removed their jackets in the stifling heat of the snug bar.
“Good of Dr. Tanner to let us know finally. A pity he couldn’t have told us earlier. But, then, the government chemist is a busy man. It moves me to think that one day the police will have their own laboratory. It moves me even more to know I haven’t a hope in Hades of being alive to see it!”
“Tanner’s sure about it being tobacco ash?” Madden asked.
“I put the same question to him. He said there’s no doubt in his mind. He’ll swear to it.”
“What made you look there?” Madden was curious, but n
ot surprised. The chief inspector’s meticulousness was legendary.
“The lavatory bowl was clean, but there seemed to be dust on the rim. Now that was strange, I thought. The rest of the bathroom was spotless. So I took some scrapings and sent them off with the other stuff.”
“Colonel Fletcher didn’t smoke, did he?”
“No, he gave up three years ago, on doctor’s advice. Nor did Mrs. Fletcher.” Sinclair cocked his head. “And somehow I couldn’t see the upstairs maid sneaking a quick fag in the master’s bathroom. No, it was our man, all right. He likes a cigarette now and again—you’ll see.”
“‘Traces of blood in the handbasin and on the hand towel . . .’ ” Madden was reading from the chemist’s report. “‘Blood group B . . .’ ”
“We were lucky there. Mrs. Fletcher was the only one in the household with that group. It’s quite rare. He cut her throat and then washed and dried his hands.” Sinclair began to pace up and down the small room. “He was in hell’s own hurry coming in, but afterwards he had the leisure for a wash and brush-up. Time for a smoke, even.”
Madden looked up. “The robbery was a blind, wasn’t it?”
“It’s starting to look that way,” Sinclair agreed. “Mrs. Fletcher’s jewellery case was lying open on the dressing-table. He grabbed a few pieces. The same downstairs. A brace of candlesticks, that clock off the mantelpiece in the study, Colonel Fletcher’s shooting cups. Anything that shone or looked fancy. He should have thought a little while he was doing that. Put himself in our shoes.”
“What’s he done with the stuff, I wonder?”
“Thrown it away?” Sinclair shrugged. “I’ll wager it won’t turn up at the pawnbrokers. Not unless he’s careless or greedy, and I’ve a nasty feeling he’s neither.” The chief inspector took out his pipe and pouch. He pointed with the pipestem at the file. “And now comes the really interesting part. Read on, Macduff.”
Madden bent over the report again. Sinclair filled his pipe. From the taproom next door the sound of voices signalled the arrival of opening time.
