Читать книгу Murder Gone Mad - Philip MacDonald - Страница 11

THE Chief Constable looked at Inspector Davis, then from that unreadable face down again to his blotting pad where there lay, side by side, three quarto sheets of yellow paper, each bearing in its centre a few words written in a dead black and shining ink.

The Chief Constable cleared his throat; shifted uneasily in his chair.

‘What do you think, Davis?’ said the Chief Constable, ‘Hoax?’

Inspector Davis shrugged. ‘May be, sir, may be not. One can’t tell with these things.’

The Chief Constable thumped the desk with his fist so that the glass ink-bottles rattled in their mahogany stand. He said:

‘But damn it, man, if it isn’t a hoax, it’s …’

‘Exactly, sir,’ The Inspector’s voice and manner were unchanged. His cold blue eyes met the frowning puzzled stare of his superior.

The Chief Constable picked up the centre sheet and read aloud to himself, for perhaps the twentieth time this morning: ‘My reference One. R.I.P. Lionel Frederick Colby, died Friday, November 23rd. The Butcher.’

‘Oh, hell!’ said the Chief Constable, ‘I never did like that damn Garden City place.’

Inspector Davis shrugged. ‘So far it hasn’t been any trouble to us, sir,’ he said.

‘But,’ said the Chief Constable interpreting the Inspector’s tone, ‘you think it’s going to be.’

‘May be,’ said Davis. ‘May be not.’

The Chief Constable exploded. ‘I wish to God you’d be less careful! … Now, let’s get down to business. I suppose you’ve tried to trace this paper.’

Davis nodded. ‘This paper is what they call Basilica Linen Bank, sir. It’s purchasable at any reputable stationers. It’s expensive and it’s only made in that yellow colour for Christmas gift boxes. The number of Christmas gift boxes of the yellow variety sold since the first Christmas display about three weeks ago is so large that we can’t get any help that way.’

The Chief Constable held up a hand. ‘One moment, Davis, one moment. Is this stuff on sale at the Holmdale shop? What do they call it?’

‘The Market, sir,’ said Davis. ‘Yes, it is. But not the yellow variety, therefore this paper was bought somewhere outside Holmdale.’

The Chief Constable scratched his head. ‘Post mark?’ he suggested without hope.

‘The letters were post-marked 10.30 a.m. Holmdale.’

‘So that,’ said the Chief Constable, ‘they were posted actually in the place itself, on the morning after the crime was committed and were delivered that same evening?’

‘That, sir,’ said Inspector Davis, ‘is correct.’

‘And,’ said the Chief Constable, ‘we’ve no more idea of who cut this boy up than the man in the moon!’

Inspector Davis shook his head. ‘None, sir. In fact, so far as we can see, the man in the moon’s about the most likely person.’

‘I can’t,’ said the Chief Constable, ‘give you a warrant for him.’ He dropped his elbows on his desk and his face into his hands. He said after a moment,

‘Damn it, Davis. We can’t sit here joking about this!’

‘No, sir,’ said Davis.

Once more the Chief Constable thumped the desk so that the ink jars rattled.

‘We’ve got,’ said the Chief Constable, ‘to do something.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Davis.

‘What the hell,’ said the Chief Constable, ‘are we doing?’

For the first time Davis’s face showed sign of embarrassment. He shuffled his feet. He cleared his throat.

‘Of course, sir,’ said Davis, ‘we’re making careful enquiries …’

The Chief Constable exploded. ‘For God’s sake is it necessary to work that stuff off on me?’

Inspector Davis smiled, a faint, embarrassed smile. ‘There’s nothing else, sir,’ he said, ‘to say … If only we could find someone that could have any possible reason for wanting this boy out of the way …’

‘I know,’ said the Chief Constable wearily, ‘I know. Well, there’s nothing more I can say, Davis. Carry on as best you can. Only for God’s sake get a pair of handcuffs on to somebody before we have the whole countryside about our ears.’

‘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.