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This morning, at 9.15 a.m. Richard Henry Arthur Walters, a milkman in the employ of The Holmdale Market Limited, driving in the course of his rounds down New Approach, off Marrowbone Lane, saw a motor car—a small motor car of the ‘Baby’ type—standing, apparently deserted, in the semi-circular sweep at the head of the Approach. As he passed, what Walters thought a peculiar bundle in the front seat of the car attracted his attention and later, as he returned, passing the car once more, this bundle again attracted his attention. So much so, that he halted his horse, got off the milk float, and investigated.
Horribly Mangled Body
To Walter’s surprise and horror, he found that what he had thought was a ‘bundle’ was, in reality, the body of that well-known and charming young member of Holmdale’s ‘Upper Ten’—Miss Pamela Richards—the daughter of Mr and Mrs Arthur Richards, Sunview, Tall Elms Road. Walters discovered immediately that Miss Richards was not only dead, but that she had been dead for a considerable time. The injuries which had led to her death were almost identical with those which led to the death of that poor lad Lionel Colby, whose mother, the Clarion learns with regret, is likely to become dangerously ill with brain fever, brought about by her grief.
Police Activity
Official enquiries into the circumstances of Miss Richard’s death have elicited the following facts:
(1) That in the opinion of the Police Surgeon, Dr Billington, Miss Richards had been dead, when Walters found her, for at least eight hours.
(2) That Miss Richards, on the preceding evening, had left the house of Mrs Rudolph Sharp in Tall Elms Road, after a bridge party, at 12 midnight.
(3) That Miss Richards, at Mrs Rudolph Sharp’s request, had spent some time in transferring to their various homes those of Mrs Rudolph Sharp’s guests who either had no motor cars, or who had not brought their motor cars.
(4) That the last known person to see Miss Richards alive was the last of Mrs Sharp’s guests that she carried home—Mr Henry Warburton of 5 Oak Tree Grove.
(5) That Miss Richards had upon the day before broken off an engagement of marriage.
(6) That Miss Richards both throughout the evening and at 12.10 when she bade good-night to Mr Warburton and his family, had seemed in the best of spirits and far from anticipating evil fortune.
(7) That Miss Richards had, so far as her parents and immediate friends and acquaintances can vouch-safe, no enemy whatever in the world.
Ex-fiancé
It is rumoured that Miss Richard’s ex-fiancé is a well-known figure in Holmdale, but that the engagement was broken off by mutual rather than individual arrangement.
Police Theories of the Crime
In a long interview which our special representative had this morning with Inspector Davis of the County Constabulary, who is in charge of this and the Colby case, we learn that three letters signed, ‘The Butcher,’ were received this morning referring to the death of Miss Richards. These letters, except that the reference was two and the name—that of Miss Richards—was different, were identical in other respects with the letters received after Lionel Colby’s death. Inspector Davis was very frank with our representative. He pointed out that in this case of murder without apparent motive, investigation must necessarily be slower at the start than in the case where a motive or motives are immediately visible. His considered theory of how the crime actually took place is as follows:
Miss Richards—after taking Mr Warburton home—was proceeding towards her own domicile in Tall Elms Road, via High Collings, Marrowbone Lane and, as a short cut, New Approach. At the corner of New Approach (at the spot where the car was found this morning) it is the police theory that she was hailed and stopped the car, when the murderer—leaning into the car upon some pretext such as asking the time or the way—must have struck at her, killing her instantaneously and fearfully mutilating her in the same way that Lionel Colby was mutilated, namely, by terribly slitting her stomach. There can be no doubt, fortunately, that death was instantaneous, and therefore practically painless.
Police enquiries have ascertained, Inspector Davis told us, that at that time all the households of the occupied houses in New Approach were abed. A small car of the type owned by Miss Richards does not make much noise and none of the occupants of New Approach heard a sound. There are no street lights in New Approach, and after the dastardly murder had been committed, there was nothing to prevent the malefactor from calmly and cold-bloodedly going quietly upon his way.
Bereaved Family
The Clarion learns with deep regret that Mrs Richards, Miss Pamela Richard’s mother, is critically ill owing to the terrible shock imposed by her daughter’s untimely end. Mr Richards also was prostrate with shock. It is truly terrible to think how these tragedies affect, not only their victims, but also those whose loved and adored ones have been so suddenly, and as it were, by some all powerful demon, snatched from them in such a diabolic and undetectable way.
Mr Percy Godly, a little whiter than usual about his jowls which were so like gills, crunched the single sheet Clarion special into a hard ball; threw it viciously into the gutter; raised himself from his leaning posture and walked, a thought unsteadily, away. He passed in his walk the whole long green-painted front of The Market, Holmdale’s one shop, and, at this time every morning, Holmdale’s social centre.
A man stepped into Mr Godly’s path; a man who said:
‘Hullo, Godly. I say, Godly old man, I am damn sorry. Dreadful business!’
Mr Godly apparently did not hear this man. He side-stepped and walked on, his eyes fixed in a wide and clear stare. Mr Godly faced, at the far end of The Market, a group of young matrons who stood with neat and busily wagging heads, and talked together at the top of their voices, the subject for once being, in every case, the same. From this group the youngest matron detached herself and rushed towards Mr Godly with hand outstretched as if to clutch him by the arm. But, still staring with that glazed look before him, he twitched the arm away before the hand could descend upon it, and walked steadily on.
The young matron stared after him. ‘Well!’ she said, and went back to her group. The heads of the group had turned to follow Mr Godly’s progress until at the corner by Holmdale’s Inn, The Wooden Shack, he disappeared from sight.
‘Poor Percy!’ said the youngest matron. ‘I don’t care what you say! I think that when Pam broke off the engagement it hit him very hard.’
‘Poor Percy!’ said the second youngest matron indignantly. ‘Poor Percy, indeed! Poor Pamela, I say! Poor darling Pam!’
‘I say!’ said another, with something in her voice which brought all heads round to her and stilled the chattering mouths. ‘I say! Have any of you thought about this? I’ve only just realised that I haven’t. First that boy—that was awful—and then Pamela. They’re dead! Do you understand? They’ve been killed! They’ve … they’ve … There’s some inhuman thing going about that … that …’ She stopped. She caught her breath. Her eyes were wide. White teeth caught at her lower lip. She suddenly burst into a peal of sound bearing some resemblance to laughter, but having in it no mirth.
The youngest matron put her fingers to her ears. ‘Oh, don’t!’ she said.
The red brassarded boy came running up to the group. Twenty yards from them he began to chant. ‘Special! Special! Extra! Clarion Special! All about the Butcher!’
‘How dreadful!’ The eldest matron fumbled in her purse. ‘Here, boy. Give me one. How much?’
‘Tuppence,’ said the boy.
He had, it appeared, six copies left. The youngest matron was left without one. The previous record circulation of the Clarion for one week, had today with this special and unprecedented daily edition, not only doubled, but trebled itself. Holmdale was excited and more excited. But Holmdale was beginning to wonder whether excitement was so desirable as forty-eight hours ago it had seemed.
III
The Holmdale Theatre is in the Broad Walk. Facing it across the white, wide roadway and the railed-off stretch of turf and rose trees, is the red brick building which houses the offices of The Holmdale Company Limited.
At nine o’clock upon Monday, the 26th November—the evening of the day upon which Pamela Richard’s body was discovered—there was held, in the Board Room in these offices, a special meeting of Directors and others convened by Sir Montague Flushing himself.
Round the long table in the Board Room sat nineteen persons: Sir Montague, the five Directors of the main Holmdale Company, and the eight Directors of the associated and subordinate companies. There were also present Major Robert Wemyss John, who was honorary yet active Captain of Holmdale’s surprisingly efficient fire brigade; the Hon. Ronald Heatherstone, who was Private Secretary to Lord Bayford, upon whose property half of Holmdale was built; Colonel Grayling, head of the Holmdale Branch of the County Special Voluntary Constabulary; Miss Finch to represent the Press, and Arthur Steele, Sir Montague’s Private Secretary, to take notes of the proceedings.
The meeting had begun at seven-thirty. Now, an hour and a half later, it was drawing to its close. Sir Montague was speaking, and speaking, for once, without that pomposity which until today all those gathered about the table had thought part of the real man. He was saying:
‘… I take it then, gentlemen, that we are fully in agreement that as from tomorrow, unless by tomorrow night the Police have laid their hands upon this … this fiend, we’ll take the steps we’ve been discussing … If you have got them down, Steele? … Thank you … I think I’ll read over these points, just to make sure there’s no misunderstanding. First, Colonel Grayling, if he gets permission from the authorities, will have every road patrolled by one or more special constables, in addition to the regular constables who will be so employed. Second, Captain John will provide additional patrolling help out of his volunteers. Third, you, Mr Heatherstone, will obtain, if possible, Lord Bayford’s permission to use some of his outdoor staff, such as gamekeepers, for patrolling the entrances to and exits from the city, so that all incomers and outgoers after dark may be interrogated. Fourth, Miss Finch will issue another special edition of the Holmdale Clarion tomorrow, in which it will be clearly stated that the Holmdale Company are prepared to pay a reward of £500 for information leading to the capture of the … the … murderer. Are we all agreed upon that, gentlemen?’
Sir Montague seemed somehow less portly than usual and certainly less sure of himself and his own greatness as he looked round the table. There was something not without pathos in the anxiously out-thrust face; something almost pitiful in the man’s pallor and uncertainty; something certainly admirable in his earnestness. There were murmurs of assent.
‘You needn’t worry about my end,’ said young Heatherstone heartily. ‘Bayford’ll lend you all his men. If he doesn’t, I’ll send ’em along without asking him.’
‘I’ll get a rush edition out before noon, if I can, Sir Montague,’ said Miss Finch, and rose and fumbled beneath her chair for the perpetual umbrella.
‘I’ll get permission for the Specials all right and enroll a devil of a lot more.’ This in a growl from Grayling.
‘Thank you. Thank you,’ said Flushing. ‘Well, gentlemen, I’m sorry to have kept you so long.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I see it’s already well past a normal dinner time …’
There was a general shuffling as chairs scraped back over the thick carpet and a sudden muddled hum of many small conversations as men struggled into their coats.
Steele threw open the double doors leading from the Board Room to the hallway. Thirty-eight feet clattered along the hall and so to the main doors and the flight of steps leading down to the pavement. The porter, expectant of tips, flung open the doors. The first rank shivered a little as the cold air struck their faces. The night was dark, but stars blazed in a black and moonless sky. The frost had held and there was a chill wind from somewhere in the north-east. Light, broken into a hundred little shafts by the bodies of the small crowd, flooded out from the hall and stabbed fingers at the darkness. Twenty-five yards away, straight opposite, the red and yellow signs across the face of the theatre winked cheerfully and a yellow rectangle of light poured through the glass doors of the portico.
Young Heatherstone tightened his muffler and turned up the collar of his ulster. He said to Grayling beside him:
‘Looks pretty cheerful, what? Hardly as if there was a … Jumping Gabriel, what’s up!’ The sudden change in his tone from one of idle pleasantness to one of urgent and vehement wonder brought a dozen eyes to peer in the direction of his pointing arm. From out of the theatre’s portico there had rushed suddenly a man in the theatre’s green and gold and scarlet uniform; a man hatless and to judge by his manner distraught; a man who, arrived upon the pavement, looked with quick turnings of his whole body to his right and to his left, and then, standing half crouched, put to his lips a whistle whose shriek throbbed across the cold, dark air.
‘What the devil!’ said Heatherstone, and was gone, crossing the roadway in four strides. He took the railings to the grass in a leap and arrived by the side of the man who whistled before any of his companions had moved a foot. The first few of them to cross the road and the grass saw him, after urgent and gesticulating talk with the commissionaire, disappear at a run into the portico. The commissionaire, turning suddenly, made off to his right at a long, loping run.
Grayling was the first to reach the theatre. He pushed open the heavy swing door which still vibrated with Heatherstone’s entry. In the vestibule he found the beginnings of a white-faced and gaping crowd. From this he singled out a face—a face whiter even than those which surrounded it, but a face beneath the cap of green lace worn as part of their uniform by the women who serve in the theatre. A man of sixty-five, but a man, Grayling, who knew both what he wanted and how to get it. He cut the girl out from the swelling crowd—they were pouring now in gusty lumps from the exits—as a skilled sheep dog a desired ewe.
‘Where?’ barked Grayling. ‘What is it?’
The girl gasped something, pointing. He dropped her arm. He jumped for the arch upon his right which framed the stairs leading up to the Royal Circle and Balcony. Despite his years and weight, he went up the stairs three steps at a time and came, after thirty of them, to the first floor vestibule where was the Tea Lounge and the chocolate counter and main door to the Royal Circle. That door was closed and before it there stood white-faced but determined, the short and ungainly bulk of Rippon, the theatre’s manager. The tall, broad, heavy-coated figure of Heatherstone was leaning, his hands flat upon the front of the chocolate counter, peering over it. At the sound of Grayling’s footsteps he looked up, twisting over his right shoulder a face whose tight clenched mouth, out-thrust jaw and fierce pallor brought the newcomer to his side quicker than would have any words.
‘Look!’ said Heatherstone.
Grayling stood beside him, and now himself peered over the counter and down.
In the uncarpeted semi-circle of floor between the blank back of the counter and the shelves, gaudy with sweatmeat boxes, there lay, like a crumpled life-size doll, the body of a young woman. Her face was pressed to the floor. Her arms were doubled beneath her. Her legs were ungainly asprawl in a position impossible, it seemed, for a living person …
And upon her back, between slight shoulders and waist, there lay like a square yellow lake, a piece of paper.
And out from the paper, staring up at Grayling’s eyes, printed in black ink, were four words:
WITH THE BUTCHER’S COMPLIMENTS.
CHAPTER IV (#ulink_6317a1a1-2c2a-5fe9-9fe6-214de1177849)
I
SUPERINTENDENT ARNOLD PIKE of the Criminal Investigation Department was talking with his immediate chief. Pike was saying:
‘Very well, sir, but you realise that I shall have to drop the Brandon business?’
Lucas shrugged. ‘Of course you will. But Broxburn can take that on. Anybody could do that, Pike, but this Holmdale job isn’t anybody’s meat.’
‘If you asked my opinion, sir,’ Pike said, with a wry smile, ‘I’d tell you that the Holmdale job isn’t really doable!’
‘Oh, rubbish!’ said Lucas. ‘Take two men and get off there by car as quick as you like. Get down there by lunch time. Who do you want with you?’
Pike considered a moment. He looked among the pages of a small notebook pulled from his waistcoat pocket. ‘Blaine,’ he said, ‘and Curtis. They’re not on anything special at the moment, sir.’
Lucas nodded. ‘Right! Take them and for God’s sake catch this lunatic or whatever it is before we get any more questions in the House. If only these County Police would ask us in at once instead of waiting until they’ve made a mess of everything, life might be easier.’
Pike nodded. ‘By jing, sir,’ he said, ‘I echo that wish!’ He turned towards the door.
Lucas recalled him. ‘Oh, Pike. You’d better stay down there, I think. And the men.’
Pike nodded. ‘It’s the only way, sir, to get at the thing properly.’ Once more he started for the door. Once more he was halted, but this time by himself. With his fingers on the door knob he turned. ‘By the way, sir,’ he said, ‘heard anything of Colonel Gethryn? How he is, I mean, sir?’
Lucas grinned and shook his head. ‘No. Beyond the fact that he’s going to be in bed for another three weeks with that thigh, nothing.’ He smiled at Pike with some slyness. ‘Why? Want help already?’ Pike laughed. ‘I’m not proud, sir, you know. I was just wondering whether, if he wasn’t doing anything, he might like to come down.’
‘Well, he can’t go down,’ said Lucas and laughed again. ‘And anyhow it’s not his line and you know it. This isn’t a job for a man so much as a job for an organisation. When you can’t find a motive, in fact when there isn’t a motive, you’re dealing with some form or other of lust-killing and to pick a lust-killer—who may be, on the surface, a most ordinary, respectable citizen—out of a crowd of six thousand citizens, isn’t a job which can be done by deduction. It’s got to be done by massed police work, cleverly directed … You get along, Pike, and don’t forget to show the world how the Düsseldorf business ought to have been handled.’
II
Three rooms in the Holmdale Company’s Offices had been placed at the disposal of the police. In the largest of these, at three o’clock in the afternoon of his first day there, Pike sat in talk with the Chief Constable of the County and County Inspectors Davis and Farrow. There was, to begin with, constraint. The Chief Constable had overruled his subordinates and asked the aid of Scotland Yard. But his subordinates were not, as perhaps was natural, pleased with the decision. They were, officially, ready both to help and to take their orders from Scotland Yard. Unofficially, they were anxious to show that left alone, as in their own opinions they ought to have been, they could probably have done the job more quickly, more neatly and with greater efficiency.
The Chief Constable, burly, red-faced and even at this time genial, sat at the head of the table. Upon his left, side by side, each as stiffly erect as his fellow, both in plain clothes, sat Inspectors Davis and Farrow. Davis was tall and lean, with a Sergeant-Major’s blue eye and waxed moustache. His face was hard and wooden and always, if he had any feelings, a mask for those feelings. Farrow was tall and thick, with the shoulders and round head of a pugilist. His face, unlike Davis’s, was a battleground for his inner emotions. At the moment he frankly scowled. His hot, reddish-brown eye regarded the trimly lounging figure of Superintendent Pike, who faced him across the table, with belligerent disfavour.
Pike had been in similar situations not once but a hundred times. He had his own methods. He was not truculent. He was not oleaginous. He was very pleasant. His brown, lantern-shaped face smiled unpartially at the other three. Not a permanent smile, but a smile, when answered, both friendly and, at the same time, individual.
They were talking of what had happened and of what might happen, and of what steps should be taken to prevent such happenings. They dealt, with Davis as spokesman, with the Colby murder and came to the conclusion that everything up to this stage which could have been done had been done. They dealt, then, with the truculent Farrow as spokesman, with the murder of Pamela Richards, and came to the same conclusion. They dealt, now with the Chief Constable as main spokesman, and both Inspectors as chorus, with the murder of Amy Adams, the waitress at the Holmdale Theatre chocolate counter. And here Pike found more to say after the others had finished.
‘This girl Adams …’ said Pike. ‘There’s one or two points about her case. You’re sure to have noticed, gentlemen, that this case is different from the other two at almost every point. First, while the others are killed by a wound in the stomach, which is ripped up—all untidy as you might say—Amy Adams is killed by a single thrust through the stomach which isn’t anything but tidy. Second, third and fourth, while Lionel Colby and Pamela Richards are killed at night and in the dark and in the open, this Adams girl is killed in the evening, and in a well-lighted public place and under a roof. Fifth, that while the first two had no … well, trademark of the murderer’s on ’em when they were found, Amy Adams did. Sixth, that while Lionel Colby and Pamela Richards had parents at least in comfortable enough circumstances, the Adamses are really poor folk living in a small cottage with the father actually out of work and on the dole.’
Pike sat back in his chair and looked, with his brown, bright eyes, at the Chief Constable.
The Chief Constable pondered, stabbing at the blotting-pad before him with a tortured pen nib. He raised his eyes at last to look at his two henchmen. ‘Thought of that?’ he said.
Davis nodded. ‘Of course, sir,’ he said, ‘we’ve seen all that.’ His voice was, as usual, a flat monotone, but there was in it also a rasping of bitter and elephantine irony. ‘We couldn’t help ourselves but see all that. It was us, you see, who did all the work and found out these facts.’
‘What I asked,’ said the Chief Constable mildly, ‘was whether you’d thought about it?’ He looked now at Farrow.
Farrow could not, as had the more controlled Davis, keep his eyes off Pike as he answered.
‘Thought about it!’ Farrow exploded. ‘Thought about it!’—And then, with sudden realisation of his company—‘Beg your pardon, sir, I’m sure. But if we haven’t been thinking, and thinking hard, about the whole bl——about the whole business for these past seventy-two hours and more, I’d like to know what we have been doing.’
‘Yes. Yes.’ The Chief Constable was soothing. ‘Yes. Quite; quite!’ He turned to Pike and said: ‘And what was your thought, Superintendent, when you put this “difference” point to us?’
Pike shook his head. A faint smile twisted his wide mouth. He said:
‘Nothing … I’ll have to explain myself a bit, sir. It’s always been my way not to think at the beginning of a job. I’ve found it pays me very well. I just turn myself—or try to turn myself—into a machine for recording facts without theorising. I don’t worry about whys and hows and whats and ifs. I just try to collect facts whether they appear to have any bearing on the case or not. Then, suddenly, when I’ve been digging round long enough and hard enough, I maybe dig up something which seems to click in my mind and become a good starting-off place for a think … I hope you follow what I mean, sir.’
‘Chacun,’ said the Chief Constable with a most un-Gallic accent, ‘à son gout.’ Kindly he translated: ‘Each man his own way … I gather then, Superintendent, that you had no particular reason for drawing our attention to the differences which exist between the circumstances of Colby’s and Pamela Richards’s murders and Amy Adams’s murder?’
Pike smiled at the Chief Constable. ‘That’s right, sir. No particular reason except that, as the cleverest man I know is always saying, in this sort of job, if one collects eddities one sometimes—very often, in fact—gets somewhere.’
Inspector Davis coughed, breaking the little silence which had followed Pike’s speech.
‘It seems to me, sir,’ said Davis, ‘that we might get down, as it were, to brass tacks; might get down, that is, to deciding what steps we’re going to take to prevent any more of these murders …’
Farrow grunted assent. ‘Ah, that’s right! That’s right, sir! And I’d like to add, what steps ’re we going to take to ensure that we watch this blasted lunatic.’ He turned to his colleague. ‘There’s only one way, Davis, to make sure of stopping these murders and that’s to catch the man that’s doing ’em.’
‘What,’ put in Pike mildly, ‘are the arrangements so far?’
The faces of Davis and Farrow, which had been turned each towards the other, turned now, outwards, towards the interloper. The interloper remained unmoved. He was not smiling any longer, but his lantern face was placid like a child’s. The Chief Constable—a man, perhaps, of more sensibility than sense—felt strain in the air. He hurried in with his stubby oar. He said quickly:
‘What are we doing? I’ll tell you, Superintendent.’ He fumbled among the papers stacked to one side of the blotting-pad before him and produced at last some pinned together foolscap sheets. ‘Here’s a copy of the present arrangements. I’ll just go through them in brief for you and then let you have the papers.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Pike’s tone was diplomatically grateful.
The Chief Constable cleared his throat. ‘First,’ he said, ‘as from four o’clock this afternoon, every main thoroughfare and every secondary thoroughfare in this place will be patrolled by regular police drafted in from other areas of the county. The patrols will be in pairs and will be on throughout the night, coming off duty an hour after dawn. These patrols will be supplemented in regard to the secondary thoroughfares by volunteer patrols, composed of special constables, under the control of Colonel Grayling, who acts under my directions, and other volunteers under the control of the Holmdale Company, who also hold themselves at my directions. Further volunteers will be posted to cover the various cul-de-sacs, squares, keeps and other non-thoroughfare ways. Further, as from five o’clock this afternoon, specially authorised guards (they will all be enrolled tomorrow as special constables to give them further powers) will be posted at all the entrances and exits of Holmdale. These men are being supplied, Superintendent, by the courtesy of Lord Bayford. An elaborate code of signals, in the case of any discoveries being made or any assistance being required, has been evolved. You will find full details of the whole scheme in the papers. Further, a reward of five hundred pounds has been offered by the Holmdale Company for information leading to the arrest of the murderer … What’s that, Superintendent?’
Pike shook his head. ‘Nothing, sir, nothing. I was only thinking what trouble you’re going to have. I’m not sure that I believe in these advertised rewards.’
‘We couldn’t,’ said the Chief Constable, ‘stop the Holmdale Company from offering the reward or the Holmdale Clarion from publishing the offer. And also, Superintendent, I’m not sure that the course isn’t justified.
Pike shrugged. ‘Very likely you’re right, sir!’
