by J. J Marric
Riddell grinned.
"Seventy-five."
"Oh, lor'," said Hill, and lit his cigarette; a little flame shot up at the end where a few strands of tobacco hung down, and the smoke was very blue and the smell pungent. "Well, I'd say that this dog's been killed, but why hasn't anyone missed it?" He puffed and blinked, and Riddell knew that he was genuinely deep in thought. Now and again his big jaws moved in a chewing-the-cud kind of motion. "I'd have laid odds that a postman knew every dog on his round."
"Couldn't be a postman, could it?" asked Riddell.
"Could be anyone," Hill said musingly, and pondered again. "Can't say we ought to spend much time on that possibility yet, but there's a different angle."
Riddell could not see one, and kept silent.
"The dog would have been about on Saturday, so Saturday's postman would have seen it. It would be missing on Monday. So—"
"Any postman who changed his round this week and started a new one wouldn't know anything about the dogs or people on the round," Riddell put in, suddenly bright-eyed.
"That's it," agreed Hill. "Had that in the back of my mind, I suppose, knew I wanted to think about it a bit more. What kind of digs have you got?"
"Bloody awful."
"Bad luck," sympathized Hill. "Mine aren't bad. I've got a room over the Pier Inn. Noisy at night but I don't mind that; my wife always says if I can sleep through my own snoring I can sleep through anything. What about coming over and having a drink? We might think up some more bright ideas between us."
"Id like to," Riddell said, with almost too much alacrity.
They stayed in the Pier Inn's bar until half past ten, closing time, and each had three whiskies and sodas. Then Riddell walked back to his lodgings. On the way several cyclists passed him, and he found himself remembering that a cycle had been mentioned in the case. You could never tell: the killer himself might be passing any minute. He thought that several times and, when he reached the front door of the house where he lodged, he stood looking up and down the road, reminding himself that he was getting as bad as Hill and Gideon.
A cyclist passed him.
It was George Arthur Smith.
Smith was seeing visions, of girl children with lovely silky golden hair, long hair which was so beautiful beneath one's hand, which seemed to caress him instead of being caressed by him. He was seeing the faces of girl children, but not girls he had actually known, or had taken out for a bus ride or for a walk, feeding them with sweets and letting them go some distance from his home. These were girls whom he had never seen; dream girls; and all the same girl, in some strange way.
They all had the same face.
They all had pink, warm, chubby little grubby little hands, and they all pointed with a forefinger, the nail of which was slightly bitten.
They all answered to the name of Grace.
He did not even remember that a Grace had once lived next door to him, was dead, yet was alive.
Sometimes they stubbed fingers and noses against the glass of the shop window. Sometimes they breathed on the glass. Sometimes they were giving him money, and he was giving them sweets.
Little Grace.
She lived at 51 Perm Street, not very far from his corner shop.
He cycled past the man standing on the doorstep, without giving him any thought. A policeman was walking down the street further along, and Smith realized that the man was staring at him, but he did not really feel worried, because there was no reason at all to think that he was suspected. In any case it was dark, and he couldn't be seen. He cycled to the shop and then, on sudden impulse, went to the corner of Penn Street, and cycled slowly along that. There were several street lights, and one of them was opposite number 51, but on the other side of the street. The bungalow looked bright and new even in the poor light.
Grace slept in a room at the rear, he knew.
He turned round at the end of the street and then cycled back, very slowly. He could see little Grace everywhere, and he wanted desperately to stroke her hair. He slowed down, but a couple of young people walked along on the other side of the road, and he quickened the speed of his cycle and went past. He turned toward the shop. He was breathing rather fast now, and just had to feel that beautiful, silky golden hair. He couldn't help it, he had to go and see Grace.
There was a light in the shop, unusual so late, and then he saw his mother standing on the curb, looking toward him. As he drew near, she called out in a shrill voice:
"Is that you, Georgie?"
Why did she call him Georgie?
He could hit her.
"Yes, Mum."
"What have you been doing along there?"
"I've just come from the pictures, Mum."
"You don't usually come home that way."
Anger rose up in him, and he jumped off his bicycle and pushed past his mother roughly, wheeled the machine into the shop, and let it fall against a counter; it knocked off some tins of food which were stacked near the edge. His mother came following, and he heard her shooting the bolts of the door. He had longed to go and see Grace, but the spell was broken, and it was her fault: the fault of the old woman who now came in and stared at him in a way which he knew was queer.
"Georgie," she said in an unsteady voice, "there's no need to get cross. I only asked you—"
"I can come home from the pictures any way I like, and it's none of your business," he said roughly. "I'm fed to the teeth with you pestering me with a lot of senseless questions. You lead your life, and I'll lead mine, and that's all about it."
He ate his supper in surly silence, and only grunted "good night."
When the light in his room had gone out, his mother went to her bed and knelt down and prayed, because she did not know what to do.
He couldn't be the man; not her Georgie.
He simply couldn't be the man.
But she had seen the way he looked at little Grace, and the way he stroked her hair, and she remembered that first Grace so vividly.
It wasn't a crime to stroke a child's hair, and these days it soothed George. Long, silky golden hair had fascinated him since he had been very young. From the depths of her memory, Mrs. Smith could see a next-door neighbor's child, with hair like spun gold, who had been a bosom friend of her son's. The child had been found hanging from the banisters of her home after a childish game. George had been beside himself with grief, and had taken a long, long time to get over it; for years he had hated girls with that unusual kind of hair.
For some time his mother had believed that these days it soothed him; but was she right?
Keith Ryman lay in his single bed, with Helen in the bed next to him, curled up like a kitten as she always was when asleep. The light from a street lamp in Park Lane was bright enough to shine on her hair, and it touched the mirror in the gilt-framed dressing table, so that Ryman could just make out his reflection. It was a little after one o'clock, and he had been concentrating for a long time, with so many things buzzing in his mind that he was not sure which ought to have priority. He was aware that there might be snags in all he had planned; he must get the police searching for the baby before there was any attempt at ransom, for instance. He might decide not to go ahead with the ransom. Helen wanted the twenty-five thousand he said he was going to demand for the baby, but it was only chicken feed, and might carry a big risk. There'd be plenty for Helen out of the bank job. They could send the baby back—provided they could make sure that the kidnaping couldn't be traced back to them.
Rather than that, they must kill and bury it.
Would Helen be like Rab Stone? Softhearted.
There was another snag over the two policemen, the kind of thing one sensed but could not understand. Gideon as a victim was in the back of his mind, but Ryman had gone no further than thinking it a good idea. Its weakness might be that the police would certainly exert themselves for Gideon, and he did not want to goad them too far.
"Just get them running round in circles," he told himself.
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He went very still and stared up at the ceiling, for he had seen a real snag. He was going to get two men to kill two coppers; two crook-murderers who would have to be paid. Either of them might talk; what was more, each had been inside, or at least associated with crime, and each was known to hate a particular policeman. The police would go straight to these obvious suspects and they would be able to say who had paid them. Not him, of course, nor Stone, not even Si Mitchell, but a go-between. All the same, it wasn't safe. The police might get onto Si; and if Si was frightened enough he might name Rab Stone.
This was how fools got caught: not looking far enough ahead.
He gave a snort of laughter. Helen started, and shifted her position a little, but did not wake up. He began to laugh in earnest, and smothered the sound beneath the sheet. The solution to this was obvious once one thought about it.
The men who hated Maybell and Archer must not kill the policemen; someone else, who had no known motive, would do that. The police would immediately go for the obvious suspects, who would protest they had nothing to do with it. But supposing each had been lured to the murder spot; once it was known that they had been there, the police would simply laugh when they said they had been framed. And the police would feel positive that they had the right men.
Hyman stopped laughing.
"It's golden," he muttered, inspired by his own brilliance. "Golden!"
Then he thought: "But we can't take chances with other people. I'll have to do one job, Rab the other."
He thought in silence for a few minutes, and went on:
"That's it. It'll have to be after dark. We'll fix the cops next Thursday. We'll snatch the baby on Friday morning, tennish, and fix the bank van Friday afternoon, two o'clock, the time it always leaves."
He turned over, drew the bedclothes up to to his chin, and closed his eyes; five minutes afterward he was fast asleep.
Less than half a mile away, the Mountbaron family slept, the baby in a dressing room next to its parents.
Little Grace slept at 51 Penn Street, but Smith was restless.
London slept, and so did Bournsea.
Chapter 14
TWO MOTHERS
Gideon woke next morning soon after seven o'clock, and Kate turned over and began to flicker her eyes. "I'll get some tea," Gideon said, and went downstairs, yawning. It was very bright outside. The first thing on his mind was the Bournsea affair, for the newspapers screamed headlines that a child had been attacked at Seaham, fifty miles along the coast; that was true, but it wasn't connected; the local police had already caught the man. The prominence of this story betrayed summer's shortage of news, as well as the fact that public anxiety was really aroused.
Gideon had to make himself concentrate on the things Kate had suggested about his draft proposals; good, sound comment—to make it as simple as he could. He wouldn't have a chance to plead a case like a barrister in court, she'd reminded him.
"I think you'll just have to make a précis in a page or two, dear, a summary to make everyone sit up. You'll need all this to support it, but—well, I suppose the truth is you've got to frighten everyone who can help."
Frighten everyone; that was it. And make the Home Secretary listen. Gideon still felt uneasy about the Home Office reaction to his Sunday statement, but it was a quiescent anxiety now.
He reached the office early, and decided that this was a day to behave as the acting A.C. and to leave Bell to take over on his own as stand-in Commander. He went along to the A.C.'s office, and found pencils sharpened, inkwell filled, a clean pad, everything that he could need ready, including an array of morning newspapers one upon the other. Either Rogerson had been lucky or he knew how to train staff. Within fifteen minutes, Gideon was fidgety, wanting to know what was going on. After half an hour, he found it almost impossible to sit there and go through the mass of administrative papers, as well as report upon report at A.C. level.
At ten o'clock, his own "case report" pushed aside; he stood up. He had allowed Bell plenty of time; it would no longer look as if he couldn't trust the C.I. As he opened the door, a telephone bell rang in Miss Sharp's room, and a moment later one rang on his desk. He went back to answer it.
"Will you speak to Superintendent Hill, sir? He's been talking to Chief Inspector Bell, and would like to have a word with you if you can spare a minute."
"I'll talk to him." Gideon stood very still, staring at the window, seeing not the plane trees waving gently, nor the roof of the London County Hall, but the beach and the blue sea, a fair-haired child and a dog.
"You're through," Miss Sharp said.
"That you, Hippo?"
"Yes, but not with the news you want yet," said Hill promptly. "We haven't got any further, George, except in one way. I cursed you for sending me that drip Riddell, but he's come up with a good one. Got a mind, if he can be made to use it. Did you kick him down here?"
"Yes."
"Thought as much. He used to bare his teeth when he heard the name Gideon. Anyhow, he—"
Hill did not waste words.
". . . and he's talking to the headmasters of the different schools; there are twenty-three in the district," he went on. "We're going to have each school watched at lunchtime and this afternoon, and every child with that kind of fair hair followed. Right?"
"Nice work." It was first-class. "Might be more in Riddell than I realized."
"Thanks, A.C.," said Hill. "How d'you like being upstairs?"
"If I don't like it any more at the end of a month, I'd rather be back on the beat," Gideon said. "Talked much to Bell?"
"He's on the ball."
"Fine," said Gideon.
The call had cheered him up a great deal. He went back to his notes and began to work on them, bearing in mind all that Kate had said. But he needed the fullest possible data before he could put enough punch in the final report.
He sent for Miss Sharp, and began to dictate memoranda and letters; his own voice lulled him into a sense of self-sufficiency, and somehow drowned the cries of those who sought the help of the police.
Little Grace Harrison always stayed at school for lunch, because her mother went out to work, and there was no one home until half past five in the afternoon. A neighbor kept an eye open for any childish troubles, and was always ready to go to the rescue after a cut knee, a grazed hand, or a quarrel with another child. The neighbor's children were all older and able to take care of themselves.
That particular afternoon, the neighbor was baking.
That particular afternoon was the one which George Arthur Smith had off duty, if he wanted it, but he stayed in the shop while his mother busied herself out in the garden, where she really enjoyed herself. They had said little to each other that morning, and Smith had given her hardly any thought; he could only think of Grace. He had dreamed of her, he could almost feel the sensuous excitement as he passed his hand over her hair, and in a way she became merged in identity with other children, the two who had started to cry, and whom he had silenced.
She would be home soon.
It was already half past three.
He sat behind the counter, reading a magazine and serving the occasional customer who came in. He was near the sweets, and at a spot from which he could see into the street and the direction from which the children came.
He saw Grace.
And she was on her own.
He put the magazine aside and swallowed a lump in his throat, then put his hand to one of the big glass jars of toffees, the kind Grace liked. He took a handful out. He looked at the door leading to the back parlor and to his mother, and he wished that she was out. Then he thought suddenly that he didn't want her to be out, he wanted to go off for an hour.
He knew all about Mrs. Harrison, and what time she came home, and that she wouldn't be at the bungalow now. No one would be. He could go along there, as if to deliver some groceries. He could . . .
The child was coming much nearer, skipping lightly. The sun in this golden spell of wea
ther was bright on her hair, making it look like spun gold, and Smith stood up and stared at her, his hands crooked, ready to stroke that hair. He had to; he just had to; it drew him as a magnet, and he had no other conscious thought.
Grace came up to the window.
He felt as if he were being stifled by some force beyond his control.
She pressed the palm of her hand against the glass, and then touched it with the tip of her nose, flattening that tip. Her eyes looked huge and blue. He held out the sweets so that she could see them, and she looked up at him in the way that so many girls had looked up at him: trustingly. He gulped again. He beckoned her. She drew away from the window, where there was the smear of her grubby hand and the faint mist from her breath.
Then she turned and walked away, swaying from side to side, until she disappeared.
Smith gritted his teeth.
The little devil, why had she done that?
He pushed the sweets into his pocket and went to the parlor door, then to the open garden door. His mother was bending down and turning over the soil with a trowel; there was a box of plants by her side.
"I'm going out for an hour," he said, in a voice which he could hardly hear himself, and she took no notice.
"Mother!"
She looked round. "Yes, Georgie?"
Why didn't she stop calling him Georgie?
"I'm going out for an hour. Take over, will you?"
She got to her feet with an effort, for her back got stiff very easily. He could hardly see her face, for instead of gray hair he saw golden, instead of lined cheeks he saw smooth ones.
"All right," she said. "Where are you going?"
"Never mind where I'm going, I can go where I like!" he shouted at her, and turned round, strode across the little dark parlor and into the shop, and then to the street. Grace was out of sight. He had to catch up with her and make her talk to him. He had those sweets; he would take her for a bus ride.
She was bound to like a bus ride. He quickened his pace as he felt the attraction, a kind of compulsion which he could not resist; it had never been like this before, never so powerful and insistent.
