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‘What’s the matter?’
Luke did not answer. He was staring at a name in the printed column.
Jimmy repeated his question.
Luke raised his head and looked at his friend. His expression was so peculiar that Jimmy was quite taken aback.
‘What’s up, Luke? You look as though you’d seen a ghost.’
For a minute or two the other did not reply. He dropped the paper, strode to the window and back again. Jimmy watched him with increasing surprise.
Luke dropped into a chair and leaned forward.
‘Jimmy, old son, do you remember my mentioning an old lady I travelled up to town with—the day I arrived in England?’
‘The one you said reminded you of your Aunt Mildred? And then she got run over by a car?’
‘That’s the one. Listen, Jimmy. The old girl came out with a long rigmarole of how she was going up to Scotland Yard to tell them about a lot of murders. There was a murderer loose in her village—that’s what it amounted to, and he’s been doing some pretty rapid execution.’
‘You didn’t tell me she was batty,’ said Jimmy.
‘I didn’t think she was.’
‘Oh, come now, old boy, wholesale murder—’
Luke said impatiently:
‘I didn’t think she was off her head. I thought she was just letting her imagination run away with her like old ladies sometimes do.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose that might have been it. But she was probably a bit touched as well, I should think.’
‘Never mind what you think, Jimmy. At the moment, I’m telling you, see?’
‘Oh, quite—quite—get on with it.’
‘She was quite circumstantial, mentioned one or two victims by name and then explained that what had really rattled her was the fact that she knew who the next victim was going to be.’
‘Yes?’ said Jimmy encouragingly.
‘Sometimes a name sticks in your head for some silly reason or other. This name stuck in mine because I linked it up with a silly nursery rhyme they used to sing to me when I was a kid. Fiddle de dee, fiddle de dee, the fly has married the bumble bee.’
‘Very intellectual, I’m sure, but what’s the point?’
‘The point, my good ass, is that the man’s name was Humbleby—Dr Humbleby. My old lady said Dr Humbleby would be the next, and she was distressed because he was “such a good man”. The name stuck in my head because of the aforementioned rhyme.’
‘Well?’ said Jimmy.
‘Well, look at this.’
Luke passed over the paper, his finger pressed against an entry in the column of deaths.
HUMBLEBY.—On June 13, suddenly, at his residence, Sandgate, Wychwood-under-Ashe, John Edward Humbleby, md, beloved husband of Jessie Rose Humbleby. Funeral Friday. No flowers, by request.
‘You see, Jimmy? That’s the name and the place and he’s a doctor. What do you make of it?’
Jimmy took a moment or two to answer. His voice was serious when he said at last rather uncertainly:
‘I suppose it’s just a damned odd coincidence.’
‘Is it, Jimmy? Is it? Is that all it is?’
Luke began to walk up and down again.
‘What else could it be?’ asked Jimmy.
Luke wheeled round suddenly.
‘Suppose that every word that dear bleating old sheep said was true! Suppose that that fantastic story was just the plain literal truth!’
‘Oh, come now, old boy! That would be a bit thick! Things like that don’t happen.’
‘What about the Abercrombie case? Wasn’t he supposed to have done away with a goodish few?’
‘More than ever came out,’ said Jimmy. ‘A pal of mine had a cousin who was the local coroner. I heard a bit through him. They got Abercrombie for feeding the local vet with arsenic, then they dug up his wife and she was full of it, and it’s pretty certain his brother-in-law went the same way—and that wasn’t all, by a long chalk. This pal of mine told me the unofficial view was that Abercrombie had done away with at least fifteen people in his time. Fifteen!’
‘Exactly. So these things do happen!’
‘Yes, but they don’t happen often.’
‘How do you know? They may happen a good deal oftener than you suppose.’
‘There speaks the police wallah! Can’t you forget you’re a policeman now that you’ve retired into private life?’
‘Once a policeman, always a policeman, I suppose,’ said Luke. ‘Now look here, Jimmy, supposing that before Abercrombie had got so foolhardy as fairly to push his murders under the nose of the police, some dear loquacious old spinster had just simply guessed what he was up to and had trotted off to tell someone in authority all about it. Do you suppose they’d have listened to her?’
Jimmy grinned.
‘No fear!’
‘Exactly. They’d have said she’d got bats in the belfry. Just as you said! Or they’d have said, “Too much imagination. Not enough to do.” As I said! And both of us, Jimmy, would have been wrong.’
Lorrimer took a moment or two to consider, then he said:
‘What’s the position exactly—as it appears to you?’
Luke said slowly:
‘The case stands like this. I was told a story—an improbable, but not an impossible story. One piece of evidence, the death of Dr Humbleby, supports that story. And there’s one other significant fact. Miss Pinkerton was going to Scotland Yard with this improbable story of hers. But she didn’t get there. She was run over and killed by a car that didn’t stop.’
Jimmy objected.
‘You don’t know that she didn’t get there. She might have been killed after her visit, not before.’
‘She might have been, yes—but I don’t think she was.’
‘That’s pure supposition. It boils down to this—you believe in this—this melodrama.’
Luke shook his head sharply.
‘No, I don’t say that. All I say is, there’s a case for investigation.’
‘In other words, you are going to Scotland Yard?’
‘No, it hasn’t come to that yet—not nearly. As you say, this man Humbleby’s death may be merely a coincidence.’
‘Then what, may I ask, is the idea?’
‘The idea is to go down to this place and look into the matter.’
‘So that’s the idea, is it?’
‘Don’t you agree that that is the only sensible way to set about it?’
Jimmy stared at him, then he said:
‘Are you serious about this business, Luke?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Suppose the whole thing’s a mare’s nest?’
‘That would be the best thing that could happen.’
‘Yes, of course …’ Jimmy frowned. ‘But you don’t think it is, do you?’
‘My dear fellow, I’m keeping an open mind.’
Jimmy was silent for a minute or two. Then he said:
‘Got any plan? I mean, you’ll have to have some reason for suddenly arriving in this place.’
‘Yes, I suppose I shall.’
‘No “suppose” about it. Do you realize what a small English country town is like? Anyone new sticks out a mile!’
‘I shall have to adopt a disguise,’ said Luke with a sudden grin. ‘What do you suggest? Artist? Hardly—I can’t draw, let alone paint.’
‘You could be a modern artist,’ suggested Jimmy. ‘Then that wouldn’t matter.’
But Luke was intent on the matter in hand.
‘An author? Do authors go to strange country inns to write? They might, I suppose. A fisherman, perhaps—but I’ll have to find out if there’s a handy river. An invalid ordered country air? I don’t look the part, and anyway everyone goes to a nursing home nowadays. I might be looking for a house in the neighbourhood. But that’s not very good. Hang it all, Jimmy, there must be some plausible reason for a hearty stranger to descend upon an English village?’
Jimmy said:
‘Wait a sec—give me that paper again.’
Taking it, he gave it a cursory glance and announced triumphantly:
‘I thought so! Luke, old boy—to put it in a nutshell—I’ll fix you OK. Everything’s as easy as winking!’
Luke wheeled round.
‘What?’
Jimmy was continuing with modest pride:
‘I thought something struck a chord! Wychwood-under-Ashe. Of course! The very place!’
‘Have you, by any chance, a pal who knows the coroner there?’
‘Not this time. Better than that, my boy. Nature, as you know, has endowed me plentifully with aunts and cousins—my father having been one of a family of thirteen. Now listen to this: I have a cousin in Wychwood-under-Ashe.’
‘Jimmy, you’re a blinking marvel.’
‘It is pretty good, isn’t it?’ said Jimmy modestly.
‘Tell me about him.’
‘It’s a her. Her name’s Bridget Conway. For the last two years she’s been secretary to Lord Whitfield.’
‘The man who owns those nasty little weekly papers?’
‘That’s right. Rather a nasty little man too! Pompous! He was born in Wychwood-under-Ashe, and being the kind of snob who rams his birth and breeding down your throat and glories in being self-made, he has returned to his home village, bought up the only big house in the neighbourhood (it belonged to Bridget’s family originally, by the way) and is busy making the place into a “model estate”.’
‘And your cousin is his secretary?’
‘She was,’ said Jimmy darkly. ‘Now she’s gone one better! She’s engaged to him!’
‘Oh,’ said Luke, rather taken aback.
‘He’s a catch, of course,’ said Jimmy. ‘Rolling in money. Bridget took rather a toss over some fellow—it pretty well knocked the romance out of her. I dare say this will pan out very well. She’ll probably be kind but firm with him and he’ll eat out of her hand.’
‘And where do I come in?’
Jimmy replied promptly.
‘You go down there to stay—you’d better be another cousin. Bridget’s got so many that one more or less won’t matter. I’ll fix that up with her all right. She and I have always been pals. Now for your reason for going there—witchcraft, my boy.’
