Flowering Death

by Angus MacVicar

  “I can’t say how grateful I am, Spike, for being allowed to give you assistance.”

  Spike went home to dinner.

  CHAPTER XX

  “SPIKE! Are you going out again?”

  Aunt Margaret’s gentle eyes had become worried, when, after drinking the last of his coffee, her nephew had risen from the table with an apology. Joan’s cigarette crumpled between her fingers. There was a queer tensity in the atmosphere of the room which the ladies could not define.

  “Yes. Sorry, Aunt Margaret. ‘Men must work ... Etcetera, etcetera. Havin’ a conference with McGonagle and Spring at nine-thirty. Hope to be back about midnight. But don’t wait up for me ... ”

  He was so casual that Joan suspected danger.

  “Your conference,” she said, “is surely going to be a long one?”

  “Matter of fact, it will last a considerable time. We’re gettin’ to the end of the case, you know. May finish it to-night ... At the worst we’ll have everything cut and dried to-morrow.”

  Joan’s face was as white as the tablecloch. Aunt Margaret saw her hands clasp together. She had been told by Joan about the happenings of the previous night, and she understood the girl’s anxiety for her lover.

  “That terrible creature! Spike — do take care!” Joan attempted to make her voice come evenly. “There will be danger —”

  “Danger!” scoffed Spike from the door. “I’d face anything with McGonagle and Spring.”

  Joan’s body tightened.

  “So you are going to —”

  In three strides Spike was at her side. He took her lovely little face between his hands and kissed her. Then he touched his aunt’s white hair with his lips.

  “Cheer-oh!” he grinned. “If you’re imagining any ‘empty saddles in the old corral’ stuff — forget it! This is London — not Chicago.”

  *

  But as he awaited in his room at the Yard the coming of McGonagle and Spring, he felt scarcely so confident as he had sounded before the ladies.

  He did not expect the booby-trap set in the “Agony Column” of the Daily Star to catch the murderer. Indeed, he imagined the odds to be something like ten to one against “Black and White” being at the Roman Ruin on Wallace Common to parley with him. Had it been publicly announced that the Naval Pact would be shelved, then the murderer might put in an appearance, bearing the formula for the flower-death cure. As it was, Spike feared that the advertisement which McGonagle had inserted in the best-selling newspaper would indicate to “Black and White” its true purpose — that of luring the criminal into a position from which it would be difficult for him to escape.

  On the other hand, Spike’s thoughts continued, there was one reason which could bring “Black and White” to the rendezvous. The murderer might perceive in the appointment a chance to get rid of the nosey Spike Dorrance. He might pretend to parley and then employ his deadly little Browning ...

  And when McGonagle and Spring entered the apartment exactly at nine-thirty, their eyes a little brighter, their movements a little less certain than usual, Spike enlarged upon this idea. His friends listened patiently, knowing the man’s love of speech.

  “You may have been wonderin’ why I made that tour of the hospitals this afternoon, tellin’ the sufferers from the flower-disease that I expected to find the cure within a day or so. You may have thought I was bein’ somewhat too confident. Well, I am certainly pretty confident: and I also wanted to help those poor blighters — all except the Rank person. But at the same time I’d another purpose altogether in makin’ the visits. I wanted ‘Black and White’ to know we were on his track.”

  Spike paused to put a match to a cigarette. McGonagle’s eyes protruded. Spring’s lips were slightly parted, like those of a youthful male lead gazing on the heroine.

  “And if you’re desirous to learn how ‘Black and White’ will discover the new courage I put into his victims,” continued the head of Department Q7, “I’m afraid I can’t help you ... The truth remains that in my opinion he will become aware of my happy, self-confident attitude. He’ll understand that I’ve got an idea as to his identity. He may panic ... And if he panics we may succeed to-night in capturin’ him. I’m fairly certain, if he considers my self-confidence sheer bluff — as it is to a certain extent, he won’t put in an appearance on Wallace Common to-night. On the other hand, if he panics, he may come — in an attempt to exterminate me ... Get the notion, McGonagle?”

  “I get it, Spike.” The big inspector was frowning: it was seldom that he criticized the measures of his famous colleague, but he was now ready to do so. “And I may say this, begorra! In my opinion you ought not to visit Wallace Common to-night. It would be too risky — after the way you’ve baited the trap. You’d be doing less than your duty. You shouldn’t risk your life in such a way, when we’re almost at the end of the case. If you died, then ‘Black and White’ might never be caught ... Let Spring and I go up there alone.”

  Spring was terrified of what Spike would say in reply to the outspoken inspector. With the exception of the Assistant Commissioner on rare occasions, he had never heard anyone speak in such critical fashion to the head of Department Q7. He knew that McGonagle’s anxiety was not so much for the outcome of the McIntee case as for Spike’s personal safety; but he was alarmed lest Spike should fail to understand this aspect of the situation.

  Much to the sergeant’s relief, however, Spike grinned at the other in a friendly way.

  “You’re a decent lad, McGonagle,” he said. “But I’m goin’ with you to Wallace Common all the same. ... Listen! We have men watchin’ all the suspects in the case. Among the suspects there is ‘Black and White’. A detective ought to follow him, if and when he sets out for the Roman Ruin. The detective will be close behind him when the criminal reaches his destination. Between us all we should take the chap red-handed. It’s a darned good chance — a chance we can’t afford to miss ... Of course, he probably won’t come — unless my efforts this afternoon bear fruit. And as far as risk is concerned, McGonagle, old scout, I’ve got rather a cute idea to protect my valuable life — to let us know at once whether ‘Black and White’ has come to trade with us or to kill ... ”

  For five minutes he continued to talk, explaining the idea to his companions. At the end of that time the three men climbed into the Bentley.

  The big vehicle set off in the direction of Wallace Common, where, at eleven-thirty, there was a chance of “Black and White” keeping the appointment.

  *

  They left the lights of London behind as the car began to moan in third gear. Higher they went; and a fragrant air, unknown in the caverns of the city, flowed about them. It was dark on the outskirts of Wallace Common, for the electric standards were placed only at infrequent intervals.

  The Bentley was parked beside a workman’s dwelling, half way up the bumpy road which led around the summit of the low, squat hill. And after the engine had been switched off, the occupants of the car — Spring tending a curious bundle — were aware of the dark silence upon the region.

  This silence was accentuated, perhaps, by the glow of London beneath them and by the muffled hum which reached their ears from the night traffic on the streets. And even with such evidences of civilization close at hand, the three men were all affected by an eerie sensation as they began to climb towards the highest point of the Common.

  McGonagle’s Irish blood reacted to the quiet gloom. Though the time of their rendezvous with “Black and White” was still distant by about an hour, he saw murderous figures in every bush. He tried to whistle. He failed because his lips were too dry. Once, beneath a flaring electric lamp, he saw a purple police-box. The sight of it made him feel better.

  Spring was remembering the history he had learned at school and at Peel House. He was scarcely frightened, but he’d have liked to forget, on this dark summer night, the associations of Wallace Common.

  Almost twenty centuries ago the Roman Legions had pitched camp on the hill. In l
ater years they had built a powerful fortification on the site of the camp. And to Spring’s mind there returned the thrilling tale set down by Henga, the Norse historian.

  It told of a period when the Roman dominion of Britain became less powerful; of British risings in every part of the country. It told of the little dark Britons sending rank after rank of their number against the hawk-nosed invaders. It told of the mysterious Druids, who, by their spells and enchantments, by their terrible power, spurred on the men of their race to drive the invaders back, back towards the sea. It told of the last Roman stand on the hill now named Wallace Common: of the thousands of Britons who encircled the base of the hill and gazed up at the fortress, from the walls of which there rained a continuous shower of stones and spears whenever the attackers came too near.

  It seemed as if the stubborn newcomers might defeat the Britons yet again, for reinforcements were at hand and the Britons were scarce of food. But the Druids came together and held a great meeting on the southern slope of the hill, the slope which now overlooks the towers and housetops of London. They erected the huge stone still to be seen, surrounded by a rusty railing, about three hundred yards from the ruin. They slew a child. The Chief Druid decorated the entrails of the child with mistletoe, held them aloft and called on the Thunder God to bring destruction on the fortress.

  And the lightning came flashing out of the sky. There was a puff of smoke from the ruin and the wall fell.

  The Britons, the Druids themselves, were so afraid that they turned and ran. But the Romans in the fortress were never seen again, though the ruins were searched carefully for their bodies. The prophecy states that they will return.

  Sergeant Spring shivered, though the night was warm. He knew very well that there was no magic in the Druidical mumbo-jumbo and that the destruction of the fortress had been a natural coincidence. He knew very well that if the fortress had taken fire those Romans who escaped being burned to ashes would, on the superstitious flight of their enemies, make for the coast and join the expected galleys, bearing reinforcements. The reinforcements, it was recorded, had immediately sailed back to Gaul or Rome; and they might well have done so upon hearing from the survivors of the disaster about the apparent strength of the Britons. One thing was certain: the legionaries would never return to Wallace Common ...

  Spring tried to be very clever and philosophical. He told himself that the old legends, the old tales of the Druids, were rather like detective stories. To an outsider, looking at them from a distance and hearing them repeated by a professional story-teller who clothed the bare bones with various suggestions of romance, mystery and horror, both the Druidical legends and the detective yarns appeared, at first sight, insoluble and impossible without the aid of magic.

  And yet, thought Spring, tramping higher through the dark, when one came to consider the Druidical legends and the detective yarns with common sense, a logical and satisfactory explanation, far removed from magic, could in almost every case be discovered. The story-teller’s delight in drama, his mystifying emphasis on certain unimportant facts, could be set aside and the root facts of the history exposed.

  Spring believed that the old tales such as the Wallace Common story had survived throughout the ages in their mysterious form simply by reason of the peculiar desire in human nature to contemplate an apparently insoluble mystery: they had never been clearly explained, simply because people loved, when they told the story, to leave it a mystery and to intrigue their friends ... Probably this explained why Spike, even though almost certain of “Black and White’s” identity, had told neither the Assistant Commissioner nor McGonagle and himself of the suspicions which he harboured.

  To the youthful Spring the McIntee case had taken on the air of one of the ancient legends — an air intensified by this midnight journey to the Common. He could make little of its involved and apparently inexplicable detail. On the surface — what with flower-heaped death-chambers, a disease unknown to science and typewritten notes holding a Government up to ransom — it seemed as bizarre and unreal as the legend of Wallace Common. But he told himself that he must be looking at it from a wrong perspective — just as the story of the Roman legionaries was apt to be regarded from the wrong angle. Spike — and cold reasoning — would bring the murderer to book ...

  And yet, even with all his worldly philosophy, the sergeant continued to feel strange cold chills in his spine. The long bundle in his arms grew heavier.

  He tried to listen to what Spike and McGonagle were saying; but his mind always returned to the Roman fortress and the flash of lightning ... Funny! There seemed to be little flashes of summer lightning at the present time. Round the western horizon he could see the flickering yellow gleams ... The summer air was certainly close enough for lightning. His queer thoughts and premonitions might have been caused, too, by the electricity in the atmosphere.

  *

  The three men struck off from the narrowing road and continued their journey over the short dry grass of the Common. Somewhere a stray ewe bleated loudly.

  It seemed to Sergeant Spring as if they were cut off now from all reality. Even a distant high glare in London, where workmen toiled under floodlights near the gutted Crystal Palace, brought him no comfort.

  “We certainly couldn’t have chosen a better place for our rendezvous.” Spike’s voice stiffened Spring’s weakening resolution. “It’s about the only place in London where ‘Black and White’ will consider he’s in no great danger ... Good thing we thought of it.”

  “Begorra, Spike,” said McGonagle, the Irishman, “it’s a devilish haunted-seeming hill ... ”

  “I know ... Say! Look at the lightning. Coming closer, that storm!”

  Before them loomed the remains of the Roman fortress. Great blocks of limestone lay in muddled heaps like a graveyard in the dark; and Spring, who, in spite of his knowledge of history, had never visited the Common, discovered that the scattered boulders formed no pattern. There were no crumbling walls, no flat foundation. A few grass-grown mounds, roughly at the four corners of a square, made the sole symmetry in the place.

  “Spike!” said Spring. “I didn’t expect to find the Roman ruin like a boulder-dump.”

  “Matter of fact,” returned the head of Department Q7, “you wouldn’t have found even the stones if you’d come to this spot five years ago. The archaeologists dug them all up ... They discovered a fine lot of old Roman weapons and cooking utensils deep down.”

  A gust of hot night air passed over the hill. It moaned and whimpered among the great blocks of limestone. Spike, with Spring and McGonagle, settled down behind one boulder to await the coming of “Black and White.”

  And as time wore on they became certain that he was on his way.

  CHAPTER XXI

  THE sergeant’s queer bundle was stripped of its cloth covering. It was laid in readiness, flat beside the three men.

  As the minutes passed the watchers moved and fidgetted. Spike glanced at the illuminated dial of his watch more than once. The minute-hand, after indicating the time to be eleven, moved with peculiar slowness towards the half-hour. Spike was fairly certain that if “Black and White” did arrive, he would not be with them before eleven-thirty, the time of the advertised appointment.

  And while the Scotland Yard men waited, the thunderstorm, muttering and flickering to the west, moved closer. The peals were louder and the flashes played queer tricks as they illuminated the Roman ruin.

  Spring bit his lip.

  He had wide experience of criminal hunting. As an ordinary detective he had, with McGonagle and others, besieged the sharp-shooting Cornish brother Trevelyan in their hide-out high on a cliff-face. As a sergeant he had once been trapped in a cellar below the River, with a knife-throwing expert for company. But on neither of these occasions had he felt so troubled as he did on this sultry summer night.

  The reason may lie in the fact that Spring was essentially a man of action. His nerves became stronger when faced with a crisis, but they taute
ned and jumped when the need arrived for waiting.

  McGonagle watched the electric storm come up. He tried not to visualize what might occur if “Black and White” began to shoot. He fingered the automatic in the pocket of his Harris Tweed jacket. He wished he’d never suggested this rendezvous to Spike ... With Spring, he would have to guard Spike at all costs.

  A shadow moved far down the slope. McGonagle jerked upright, only to crouch back behind the boulder within a second. He had spotted a sheep.

  “Damn!” he muttered. “I’ll be needing spectacles soon, begorra!”

  Spike smoked several cigarettes. He was wondering if in another fifteen minutes the McIntee murder case would be virtually at an end; if, helped by McGonagle, Spring and the detective who might follow Stranger from his home, he would take the murderer red-handed.

  His heart was beating quickly. His fingers bunched themselves into two hard fists. He remembered Nan Li-San’s story of how “Black and White” had treated her. He remembered the account Mexico Madge had given of Stranger’s desire to possess poor, friendless girls in Bombay ... He hoped he’d get to grips with the criminal that night. He felt an insane longing to send his fists crashing into the face of the murderer; to feel the bones crack; to hear Stranger crying out in pain and fear.

  He told himself not to be an ass. He was a policeman — a kind of a policeman anyway. He’d have to remember what McGonagle always tried to impress upon his mind. He’d have to remember that his job was to mete out justice ... Justice!

  He stiffened suddenly as a thought occurred to him. Stranger, according to Joan’s theory and now according to his own, was mad. And as a madman he would escape the gallows — the end which he deserved. He would live: this man who defiled women, who had already caused the death of three human beings and who threatened with fatal agony, for a vainglorious whim, a score of others. He would live. He might yet escape from the lunatic cell, ostensibly cured, to wreck more evil in the world ...