Philip MacDonald – Murder Gone Mad (страница 7)

‘Yes, sir,’ said Davis.

The telephone bell by the Chief Constable’s table rang shrill.

‘Who’s that? …’ said the Chief Constable, ‘Yes … Martindale speaking. Oh, yes, Jeffson …What? … Yes … Go on, yes … Where? What time? … Good God! All right, I’ll send … Eh? What’s that you say? … Just read that over again, will you. Slowly, while I write it down.’ He picked up a pencil; scribbled to the telephone’s dictation upon his blotting pad; looked at what he had written; spoke again into the receiver: ‘All right, I’ve got that.’ His voice was no longer astonished, but weary, and with something of fear beneath its weariness. He spoke again: ‘Yes … Yes … I should think they would. Well, we’ll do what we can as quick as we can. Ring off now, will you. Stay where you are and I’ll let you have a word within half-an-hour.’ He hung up the receiver and, with an abstracted air, lifted the telephone and placed it at the edge of his desk. He looked at Davis for so long and in such pregnant silence that at last Davis was forced to break it. He said:

‘What was that, sir?’

‘That,’ said the Chief Constable, ‘was Jeffson. You know Jeffson, I think, Davis. Jeffson, from Holmdale?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Davis, half rising from his chair; then throwing himself firmly into it again.

‘Jeffson,’ said the Chief Constable, very slowly, ‘was telephoning to tell me that at 9.15 this morning, three-quarters of an hour ago, Davis, a man called Walters, who’s a milk-roundsman in Holmdale, saw a small car—a Baby Austin—standing at the end of one of the roads. He would have taken no interest in this car, except that as he passed and happened to glance down into it from his float, he saw what at first sight looked to him like a bundle of old clothes. He thought no more about it—for the moment.’ The Chief Constable’s words were coming now slower and slower: it was not so much that he was seeking dramatic effect as that he was, it seemed, trying to order his own thoughts. ‘But, Davis, he went back the way he had come, and as he got abreast of the Baby Austin, he looked down into it again … And he saw that what he had thought was a bundle of old clothes, was a bundle of new clothes … with something inside ’em. What was inside them, Davis, was a girl—a girl called Pamela Richards …’ The Chief Constable paused. The Chief Constable looked hard, over his hands which played now with a pen-holder, at Davis.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Davis.

‘Pamela Richards,’ said the Chief Constable, ‘was dead. Pamela Richards had been slit up the stomach in just the way that two days ago Lionel Colby was slit up the stomach …’

Davis’s lips, beneath his tight and tidy waxed moustache, pursed themselves. There came from them the ghost of a long drawn-out whistle of amazement.

The Chief Constable nodded. ‘Exactly, Davis. Only more so.’ The Chief Constable leant forward, pointing the end of the pen-holder at the Inspector. ‘And, Davis,’ he said, ‘almost at the moment when this milkman, Walters, was finding the body, three letters—letters like this’—here the Chief Constable tapped upon the centre of those three yellow sheets which lay upon his blotter—‘letters like this were being read by Flushing, Jeffson and the Editor of the Holmdale Clarion—letters, Davis, which were unstamped, and which must have been delivered by hand during the night.’

‘Was that letter, sir,’ said Davis, eagerly leaning forward in his chair, ‘what you were scribbling down on your blotter?’

‘It was,’ said the Chief Constable. ‘I will read it to you. It was set out just like these here. It said:

My Reference Two. R.I.P. Pamela Richards died Sunday, 25th November. And it was signed …’

‘The Butcher,’ said Davis.

II

‘What’s this? What’s this?’ said Percy Godly. ‘What’s this? What’s this?’

The boy with the red brassard of the Holmdale Clarion pushed forward the bundle of sheets which he held. ‘Special,’ said the boy. ‘Special extra. All about the Butcher.’ And that was in the official wire. ‘Blime, sir,’ said the boy, ‘ain’t it torful!’ And that was in the boy’s own voice.

‘Isn’t what,’ said Percy Godly, ‘torful?’

He pushed sixpence into the boy’s hand and waved away the change and snatched one of the broadsheets. He leaned against the corner of one of The Market windows and looked down at his purchase. He saw, in staring headlines two inches deep:

WHO IS THE BUTCHER?

HOLMDALE PANIC STRICKEN.

IS OUR CITY TO BE ANOTHER DÜSSELDORF?

THE BUTCHER’S SECOND LETTER.

PROMINENT LEADER OF HOLMDALE’S YOUNGER SET

DONE TO DEATH.

WHAT IS BEHIND THESE MURDERS?

Editorial Office, Claypits Road

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.