Crime in Kensington

by Christopher St. John Sprigg

  Unfortunately, Budge for the moment was not to be found. He had gone out that day and left no message as to where he was going.

  “I expect you gentlemen put the wind up him yesterday,” the head waiter told Bray with some relish, and dropping into a more vulgar accent than his usual tone, to show his independence. Budge had returned just as he was rifling a cigar-box in the sitting-room, and the memory of the proprietor’s remarks still rankled. “He’s probably legged it.”

  “Did he speak to anyone before he went?” asked Charles.

  “Yes, he had a word with Miss Sanctuary.”

  They sought out Miss Sanctuary, who was peaceably knitting before the fire in the little sitting-room.

  “Yes, I spoke to him this morning,” she said. “I was telling him about the scene with Miss Geranium yesterday, Inspector. You were there, weren’t you, Mr. Venables? Poor lady, I am afraid she isn’t happy here.”

  “Did he tell you where he was going, by any chance?”

  “No, why?”

  The Inspector hesitated. “To tell you the truth, madam, we want him badly.” He tapped his breast pocket significantly.

  “Dear me,” Miss Sanctuary said. “Have you a warrant for his arrest?”

  The detective nodded.

  “Poor man! Everyone here was saying he had been arrested yesterday. It is all very confusing.”

  “It was only a rumour yesterday. To-day it’s a fact,” said the detective grimly.

  “Well, I hope you’ve got the right man at last,” Miss Sanctuary said, pausing in her knitting for a moment. “It’s an awful thought looking at one’s neighbours and thinking that it might have been any of them, must have been one of them, who did this dreadful thing. Only yesterday, when Miss Hectoring came in perfectly white with anger after some words with Mrs. Salterton-Deeley, and laid her hand on my arm, I thought that might have been the hand that was pressed against my face on that terrible evening.”

  She smiled apologetically. “Of course it’s all a fancy, but I shall be glad all the same when the matter is settled. I suppose you are sure you’re right this time?”

  “Certain,” Bray assured her.

  “The police are absolutely positive,” remarked Charles truthfully.

  Miss Sanctuary reflected for a moment. “I suppose it is my duty to give you all the help I can,” she said at last. “Yet I feel as if it were cruel somehow to set the police on a fellow-human’s track. Not that I do not admire the great work you do,” she added quickly.

  Bray waited.

  “While I was with him I heard him speak to someone on the ’phone and say he would be in at the East Kensington Junior Liberal Club between two and three,” she said at last. “I suppose if you go there you’ll be able to serve your warrant.”

  “This is very good of you,” said Bray. “You needn’t feel sorry about it. It is only a matter of time before we get our man, you know. The information you have given us makes practically no difference.”

  Miss Sanctuary smiled gratefully. “Thank you. Still, I do not think one ought to shirk any responsibility that justly belongs to one. I gave my little terrier, Tim, poison with my own hands the other day when he caught spinal meningitis. It was kinder than letting a vet give it, I think, and I think I would have much less compunction in bringing to justice the murderer of the kind lady that we all loved in this hotel.”

  The two rose to their feet.

  “I am afraid the whole sorry tale is not yet done, Miss Sanctuary,” said Charles gravely. “If my premonitions are correct, we shall all have had a shock or two more before we can say the chapter is ended.”

  III

  “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Inspector,” Blood remarked, going up to the pair with a worried look. “What’s all this about Budge being arrested yesterday? I saw him this morning walking round without a hair out of place.”

  “They only asked him up to Scotland Yard to question him yesterday, Blood,” answered Charles, “but the rumour was an anticipation of the truth. Bray is looking for him now with a warrant for his arrest for the wilful murder of his wife.”

  “Are you certain he is guilty?”

  “You are the second person who has asked me that question within five minutes,” the detective replied wearily. “Do you think we arrest people out of pique?”

  Blood ignored the mild sarcasm. “Come up to my room for a moment. I have something of real urgency to tell you.”

  There was a note of tension in his voice. Bray followed him without demur. Charles was about to drop discreetly back when Blood turned to him. “You’d better come too, Venables. You can confirm one or two points in my story.”

  Blood seated the two in his room, and talked aimlessly for a little. His voice was strained, and his eyes were roving. Bray recognized the symptoms. A confession was coming.

  “I have a statement to make,” said the parson abruptly. He clasped his hands together till the knuckles whitened. “It was I who dismembered the body of Mrs. Budge.”

  Bray said nothing. Several queries suggested themselves, but, taught by experience, he ruthlessly suppressed them. Charles nodded his head sagely. His eyeglass flashed.

  Blood was speaking again in a strained, dry voice. “I am, of course, innocent of the murder, but I dared not speak before till my suspicions were corroborated by your action in charging Budge. Oh, it was a monstrous folly and I have paid the penalty of it a thousand times over in regret and sleeplessness, but it’s easy to be wise after the event.”

  The detective made an inarticulate noise of agreement. And in truth the little parson looked as if he had endured enough. The veins stood out beneath his eyes and his lips were drawn with worry.

  “Not maniples

  Nor all the gorgeous vestments of the East

  Shall medicine thee again to that sweet sleep

  Which thou owedst yesterday,”

  misquoted Charles to himself irrelevantly.

  “Venables was in the room,” he went on, “when I lifted the lid of the laundry basket to put in my dirty collar. There, staring up at me, was the face of Mrs. Budge, distorted with rigor mortis and the rictus supervening on death by strangulation. My nerve snapped, I suppose, but it did not feel like that. It felt as if my brain had suddenly cleared. I felt something in me say in a whisper, ‘Keep it quiet, or you’ll hang!’ I didn’t really mean to keep it quiet then, only to get time to think. And then Budge came into the room and wanted to empty the basket. I knew then that he had put the body there, and suddenly it came to me that the sly devil had invented some story which would involve me hopelessly, which might hang me or, at the best, cloud my name for ever.”

  He paused. The sweat stood out on his forehead and brimmed his eyebrows. “I bundled them both out of the room and then locked the door. You must remember that my medical training has made me what you might describe as callous about these things. That wasn’t Mrs. Budge lying there, her face a caricature of mortality. The real woman had already faced her Maker, and the basket held only her cast-off body.”

  Blood paused reflectively. He was living the scene over again. “One is never what one expects to be like at these moments. I played for quite a time with the idea of the cast-off body, the dirty clothing of the spirit, lying in that laundry basket, and which I was going to dispose of with as little ceremony as you would an incriminating bundle of clothing. I thought it would make a good metaphor for a sermon, a thought old Donne would have delighted in. Then I got to work… It were as if I was back in my medical student days... I made a neat job of it, and carried the pieces down as I had opportunity in the little attaché-case everybody is used to seeing me carry about. It was absurdly simple. Then I cleaned up scrupulously, and when an opportunity offered itself, exchanged the laundry basket, which I felt might still have some traces of its contents, for the clean one in Budge’s room... I felt quite safe until you talked about searching the room, and then I threw Mrs. Budge’s shawl, which I still had, and the scalpels, out
of the window. I had not had time to get rid of these before the first discoveries were made.”

  Bray smiled. “We saw you throwing them out of the window, and Charles had already interpreted your consternation on that morning, so your story does not come as altogether a surprise to us.”

  “Oh, of course, I’ve been every sort of a fool,” the parson answered shamefacedly. “I’ve gone out of my way to implicate myself and shield the real murderer—all because of a moment’s panic. I’m a disgrace to my cloth, and I suppose I shall have to stand my trial as accessory.”

  “We should certainly be justified in making you do so,” said Bray, “but if we call you as witness for the prosecution we may overlook it, in view of your voluntary statement.”

  “It will be treating me better than I deserve,” said the other humbly. “I feel like Christian when he lost his burden.”

  Charles was staring at his nails with a baffled look. Bray knew why he was baffled, for Bray was equally puzzled himself. It was incredible that any human being of intelligence would act as Blood had done, on the face of it. Blood was keeping something back—there were some incriminating circumstances which had made Blood feel that the police would suspect him of the murder and give them a prima facie case against him.

  Why was he keeping it back? And would it be worth pressing him or would it only give the defence an added weapon with which to attack Blood? For Bray saw that they would make the most of Blood’s suspicious actions to discredit the Crown’s case.

  Suddenly inspiration, luminous and clear, came to him, as it comes all too rarely to the struggling criminal investigator. He rose to his feet, trying to suppress his elation. “Did you have much job to get out the bloodstains afterwards?” he said carelessly.

  “No,” replied the other. “There weren’t many. All of the blood, except that in some of the major vessels, had congealed.”

  Bray shot at him a look charged with significance and paused meaningly. “I suppose you used some of that patent cleanser of your own invention?” he said at last.

  As Blood absorbed the full meaning of the words he wilted. White to the lips, he collapsed in his chair. Charles watched him incredulously.

  “No doubt I’m dense,” remarked Charles bitterly when they were in the corridor, “but why—oh, why—did our boy friend curl up and die at the mention of patent cleansers?”

  Bray had the cutting in his wallet. He fished it out and told the other how he had found it in the envelope Mrs. Budge had put in her solicitor’s safe keeping. “In one of those flashes of intuition one occasionally gets,” he explained, “I placed Blood as the most likely man to fill the rôle of the young swindler. He did not dare expose Budge because of the hold Budge had over him.”

  The detective paused a minute reflectively. “I still cannot understand why Budge did not make use of his hold over Blood to blackmail him. I feel as if, although I’ve got the solution in my hands, I’m not holding it the right way up.”

  Charles thumped him joyously on the back. “Hooray, the missing link!” he exclaimed. “I see it all now. Bray, my boy, in a short time I shall such a tale unfold as will freeze the youthful marrow of your bones.”

  “I am glad it’s so simple,” the other said irritably. “It’s as clear as mud to me.”

  IV

  Bray discovered that the East Kensington Junior Liberal Club took a bit of finding. Here a fresh annoyance awaited him. He went straight to the barman as the prime source of information. The barman, a melancholy soul, gaped at Bray’s official card.

  “Mr. Budge has been and gorn,” he said. “There was a letter for him marked Urgent, and he read it and hurried out.”

  Bray was about to hurry out when the barman called him back.

  “Hi, mister,” he called.

  Bray returned. Some subterranean convulsion seemed to shake the barman, and an expression of extreme cunning screwed up his eyes and mouth.

  “He knows you’re after him,” said the man at last. “Someone’s tipped him the word.”

  The barman’s face now assumed an even more portentous expression. An enormous wink reduced the length of one side of his face by about half an inch.

  “It was that letter,” the barman remarked diffidently. “I suppose a sight of the letter would be worth something to you, eh?”

  The detective saw daylight. No doubt a threat would produce the letter, but he preferred to pay his way. He produced a pound note and exchanged it without difficulty for a crumpled piece of paper. Its contents gave him an acute pang.

  “DEAR MR. BUDGE,—The police hold a warrant for your arrest for the murder of your wife. Your conviction is almost certain.

  “I am taking the great risk of telling you this and warning you that the police are coming to the Club to serve the warrant. I have got together a few clothes and all the cash that was in your desk and have put them in a bag which you will find in the toolshed in the garden. Take it, but for heaven’s sake, hurry.

  “I believe you may be guilty. I am, I suppose, a malefactor in the eyes of the law in helping you. But I must, now that I have the opportunity, register my little protest against the cruel and vindictive laws of this country, that take God’s prerogative out of His hand and wield it mercilessly, revengefully, hatefully. While this canker of capital punishment exists, I must, and shall, range myself against the institutions that permit it.

  “If I have saved you from death, repay it with a better life. The best of us are sinners. Burn this.

  “LAURA SANCTUARY.”

  Stupefied with astonishment for a moment, Bray hesitated. “The old fox!” he muttered. Yet this was not the first time he had encountered the militancy of the humanitarian. The anti-vivisectionist and he to whom the flesh of animals is taboo can offend more outrageously than the man who merely sins because he has a mind to. Conscience doth make heroes of us all.

  Then he sprang to the ’phone. Speaking to his Chief, he secured at once the necessary arrangements to prevent Budge leaving the Channel ports, or Lympne, Croydon and Heston airports.

  Then he jumped into a taxi, but he realized that Budge had quite two hours start.

  V

  The toolshed was a melancholy, wooden structure at the bottom of the garden. The tarred fabric on the roof was peeling off, and cobwebs and dust almost completely prevented any ray of light from penetrating the window to the interior.

  He opened the door warily. Coming from the sunlight into the shade, he could only see dimly, but he could make out the figure of a man in the corner staring at him.

  “Is that you, Budge?” he asked.

  There was no answer.

  Bray fished out his matches and struck one.

  No earthly officer of the law would ever caution Budge. No earthly tribunal would sit in judgment of the fact or of the law upon him. A rope was wrapped once round his neck and twice round the rafters and his feet were off the ground. Anticipating the defter attention of an official hand, he had hanged by the neck until dead…

  Quarter of an hour later, when the machine of the law was grinding, with this new development in the hopper, Bray was uncertain whether to be glad or sorry. He looked again at the shaky handwriting, shaky no doubt with the contemplation of the extremity of death.

  It began:

  “TO THE CORONER.

  “I learned to-day that a warrant was out for my arrest for the murder of my wife. I thought at first I should make a bolt for it, but what’s the good? Even if I got away clear—and that’s more than anyone wanted for murder has done before me—what sort of life should I lead with the thought of that terrible evening always before me?

  “I was a fool. I was mad. The verdict is suicide while of unsound mind, Mr. Coroner, and the verdict on my wife at the adjourned inquest is, ‘Murdered by her husband, George Budge.’”

  “Extraordinarily helpful and considerate,” remarked Charles, reading over his shoulder. “How did he do it, by the way?”

  “The orthodox way,” answered
the detective. “He stood on this box and adjusted this rope. Then he kicked the box away. Primitive, but effective.”

  “Well, what do you think about it?” asked Charles.

  “We seem to have reached the end of the most tangled case in my experience,” Bray replied. “There is always a slight element of chance about a conviction by a judge and jury. Now Budge has convicted himself—judge and jury and executioner in one.”

  “Y’know, Bray,” remarked Charles, “I must confess that you’ve been right more often than I’ve thought.”

  “A handsome admission from the amateur,” the detective said, smiling.

  “Yes,” went on the other remorselessly. “For instance, you laid down at the beginning of the investigation that a murderer never commits suicide.”

  Bray had the grace to look shamefaced. “There are exceptions to every rule of human conduct,” he admitted.

  “I don’t agree. I still believe you’re right.”

  The detective looked at him incredulously. “Really, Charles, you push subtlety too far. Are you suggesting this is not a case of suicide? What facts have you to support such an extraordinary idea? Or don’t you feel the need for facts?”

  “My main quarrel with Budge’s suicide is that if it is a suicide the elaborate theory I have carefully formulated falls to the ground,” said Charles seriously.

  Bray raised his eyebrows in mock alarm. “My dear fellow, why didn’t you tell me before? I will see that that point of view is put to the Coroner.”

  Charles waved his monocle deprecatingly. “Have the goodness not to be sarcastic,” he said plaintively. “I’d far rather see someone swatting flies with a garden roller than a policeman being sarcastic... Where was I? Oh, yes. Suicide doesn’t fit in with my theory. Again, I am prepared to swear on stylistic evidence that this letter has not been written by Budge.”