A Blunt Instrument (25 page)

"Mr. Fletcher was your uncle, sir."

"He was, and if I'd been asked I should have voted against his death. But I wasn't, and if there's one occupation that seems more maudlin to me than any other it's crying over spilt milk. Besides, you can have too much of a good thing. I'd had enough of this mystery after the second day. Interest - but painful - revived when I stepped into the role of chief suspect. I must celebrate my reprieve from the gallows. How do you ask a girl if she'd like to marry you?"

"How do you do what?" repeated the Sergeant, faint but pursuing.

"Don't you know? I made sure you would."

"Are you - are you thinking of getting married, sir?" asked the Sergeant, amazed.

"Yes, but don't tell me I'm making a mistake, because I know that already. I expect it will ruin my entire life."

"Then what are you going to do it for?" said the Sergeant reasonably.

Neville made one of his vague gestures. "My changed circumstances. I shall be hunted for my money. Besides, I can't think of any other way to get rid of it."

"Well," said the Sergeant dryly, "you won't find any difficulty about that if you do get married, that's one thing."

"Oh, do you really think so? Then I'll go and propose at once, before I have time to think better of it. Goodbye!"

The Sergeant called after him: "Here, sir, don't you run away with the idea I said you were cleared of suspicion, because I didn't say any such thing!"

Neville waved an airy farewell, and disappeared down the stairs. Ten minutes later he entered the drawing-room of the Norths' house through the long window. Helen was writing a letter at her desk, and her sister was sitting on the floor, correcting four typescripts at once.

"Hullo!" she said, glancing up. "You still at large?"

"Oh, I'm practically cleared! I say, will you come to Bulgaria with me?"

Sally groped for her monocle, screwed it into her eye, and looked at him. Then she put down the typescript she was holding, and replied matter-of-factly: "Yes, rather. When?"

"Oh, as soon as possible, don't you think?"

Helen twisted round in her chair. "Sally, what on earth do you mean? You can't possibly go away with Neville like that!"

"Why not?" asked Neville interestedly.

"Don't be absurd! You know perfectly well it wouldn't be proper."

"Oh no, it probably won't. That's the charm of travel in the Balkans. But she's very broadminded, really."

"But -'

"Wake up, darling!" advised Sally. "You don't seem to realise that I've just received a proposal of marriage."

"A… ?" Helen sprang up. "You mean to tell me that was a proposal?"

"Oh, I do hate pure women: they have the filthiest minds!" said Neville.

"Sally, you're not going to marry a - a hopeless creature like Neville?"

"Yes, I am. Look at the wealth he's rolling in! I'd be a fool if I turned him down."

"Sally!"

"Besides, he's not bossy, which is more than can be said for most men."

"You don't love him!"

"Who says I don't?" retorted Sally, blushing faintly. Helen looked helplessly from one to the other. "Well, all I can say is I think you're mad."

"Oh, I am glad!" said Neville. "I was beginning to feel frightfully embarrassed. If you haven't got anything more to say it would be rather nice if you went away."

Helen walked to the door, remarking, as she opened it: "You might have waited till I'd gone before you proposed - if that extraordinary invitation was really a proposal."

"But you showed no signs of going, and it would have made me feel very self-conscious to have said: "Oh, Helen, do you mind going, because I want to propose to Sally?"'

"You're both mad!" declared Helen, and went out. Sally rose to her feet. "Neville, are you sure you won't regret this?" she asked anxiously.

He put his arms round her. "No, of course I'm not: are you?"

She gave one of her sudden smiles. "Well, yes - pretty sure!"

"Darling, that's handsome of you, but deluded. I'm only sure that I shall regret it awfully if I don't take this plunge. I think it must be your nose. Are your eyes blue or grey?"

She looked up. He kissed her promptly; she felt his arms harden round her, and emerged from this unexpectedly rough embrace gasping for breath, and considerably shaken.

"Ruse," said Neville. "Grey with yellow flecks. I knew it all along."

She put her head on his shoulder. "Gosh, Neville, I - I wasn't sure - you really meant it till now! I say, is it going to be a walking tour, or something equally uncomfortable?"

"Oh no! But I thought we might do some canal work, and we're practically bound to spend a good many nights in peasants' huts. Can you eat goat?"

"Yes," said Sally. "What's it like?"

"Rather foul. Are you busy this week, or can you spare the time to get married?"

"Oh, I should think so, but it'll mean a special licence, and you can't touch Ernie's money till you've got probate."

"Can't I? I shall have to borrow some, then."

"You'd better leave it to me," said Sally, her natural competence asserting itself. "You'd come back with a dog-licence, or something. By the way, are you certain you won't be arrested for these tiresome murders?"

"Oh yes, because Ernie's hat doesn't fit!" he replied.

"I suppose that's a good reason?"

"Yes, even the Sergeant thought so," he said happily.

The Sergeant did think so, but being unwilling to let his last suspect go, he kept his conviction to himself. On his way downstairs from Ernest Fletcher's dressingroom, he encountered Miss Fletcher, who looked surprised to see him, but accepted quite placidly his explanation that Neville had invited him. She said vaguely: "Dear boy! So thoughtless! But men very often are, aren't they? I hope you don't think he had anything to do with this dreadful tragedy, because I'm sure he would never do anything really wicked. One always knows, doesn't one?"

The Sergeant made a non-committal sound.

"Yes, exactly," said Miss Fletcher. "Now, what can have become of Neville? He ought not to have left you alone upstairs. Not that I mean - because, of course, that would be absurd."

"Well, madam," said the Sergeant. "I don't know whether I'm supposed to mention it, but I fancy Mr. Fletcher has gone off to get engaged to be married."

"Oh, I'm so glad!" she said, a beaming smile sweeping over her face. "I feel he ought to be married, don't you?"

"Well, I'm bound to say it looks to me as though he needs someone to keep him in order," replied the Sergeant.

"You're so sensible," she told him. "But how remiss of me! Would you care for some tea? Such a dusty walk from the police station!"

He declined the offer, and succeeded bit by bit in escaping from her. He walked back to the police station in a mood of profound gloom, which was not alleviated, on his arrival there, by the sight of Constable Glass, still awaiting his pleasure. He went into a small private office, and once more spread his notes on the case before him, and cudgelled his brain over them.

Glass, following him, closed the door, and regarded him in a melancholy fashion, saying presently: "Fret not thyself because of evil-doers. They shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb."

"A fat lot of withering they'll do if I don't fret over them!" said the Sergeant crossly.

"Thou shaft grope at noonday as the blind gropeth in the darkness."

"I wish you'd shut up!" snapped the Sergeant, exasperated by the truth of this observation.

The cold blue eyes flashed. "I am full of the fury of the Lord," announced Glass. "I am weary of holding-in!"

"I haven't noticed you doing much holding-in so far, my lad. You go and spout your recitations somewhere else. If I have to see much more of you I'll end up a downright atheist."

"I will not go. I have communed with my own soul.

There is a way which seemeth right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death."

The Sergeant turned over a page of his typescript. "Well, there's no need to get worked up about it," he said. "If you take sin as hard as all that, you'll never do for a policeman. And if you're going to stay here, for goodness' sake sit down, and don't stand there staring at me!"

Glass moved to a chair, but still kept his stern gaze upon the Sergeant's face. "What said Neville Fletcher?" he asked.

"He talked me nearly as silly as you do."

"He is not the man."

"Well, if he isn't he may have a bit of a job proving it, that's all I can say," retorted the Sergeant. "Hat or no hat, he was in London the night Carpenter was done in, and he was the only one of the whole boiling who had motive and opportunity to kill the late Ernest. I grant you, he isn't the sort you'd expect to go around murdering people, but you've got to remember he's no fool, and is very likely taking us all in. I don't know whether he did in Carpenter, but the more I look at the evidence, the more I'm convinced he's the one man who could have done his uncle in."

"Yet he is not arrested."

"No, he's not, but it's my belief that when the Superintendent thinks it over he will be."

"The Superintendent is a just man, according to his lights. Where is he?"

"I don't know. He'll be down here soon, I daresay."

"There shall be no more persecution of those that are innocent. My soul is tossed with a tempest, but it is written, yea, and in letters of fire! Whoso sheddeth a man's blood by man shall his blood be shed!"

"That's the idea," agreed the Sergeant. "But as for persecuting the innocent -'

"Forsake the foolish and live!" Glass interrupted, a grim, mirthless smile twisting his lips. "Woe to them that are wise in their own eyes! Know that judgments are prepared for scorners, and stripes for the back of fools!"

"All right!" said the Sergeant, nettled. "If you're so clever, perhaps you know who really is the murderer?"

Glass's eyes stared into his, queerly glowing. "I alone know who is the murderer!"

The Sergeant blinked at him. Neither he nor Glass had noticed the opening of the door. Hannasyde's quiet voice made them both jump. "No, Glass. Not you alone," he said.

Chapter Fifteen

The Sergeant, who had been looking at Glass in utter incredulity, glanced quickly towards the door and got up. "What the - What is all this, Chief?" he demanded.

Glass turned his head, regarding Hannasyde sombrely. "Is the truth known, then, to you?" he asked. "If it be so, I am content, for my soul is weary of my life. I am as job; my days are swifter than a post: they flee away, they see no good."

"Good Lord, he's mad!" exclaimed the Sergeant.

Glass smiled contemptuously. "The foolishness of fools is folly. I am not mad. To me belongeth vengeance and recompense. I tell you, the wicked shall be turned into hell!"

"Yes, all right!" said the Sergeant, keeping a wary eye on him. "Don't let's have a song and dance about it!"

"That'll do, Hemingway," said Hannasyde. "You were wrong, Glass. You know that you were wrong."

"Though hand join in hand the wicked shall not be unpunished!"

"No. But it was not for you to punish."

Glass gave a sigh like a groan. "I know not. Yet the thoughts of the righteous are right. I was filled with the fury of the Lord."

The Sergeant grasped the edge of the desk for support. "Holy Moses, you're not going to tell me Ichabod did it?" he gasped.

"Yes, Glass killed both Fletcher and Carpenter," replied Hannasyde.

Glass looked at him with a kind of impersonal interest. "Do you know all, then?"

"Not all, no. Was Angela Angel your sister?"

Glass stiffened, and said in a hard voice: "I had a sister once who was named Rachel. But she is dead, yea, and to the godly dead long before her sinful spirit left her body! I will not speak of her. But to him who led her into evil, and to him who caused her to slay herself I will be as a glittering sword that shall devour flesh!"

"Oh, my God!" muttered the Sergeant.

The blazing eyes swept his face. "Who are you to call upon God, who mock at righteousness? Take up that pencil, and write what I shall tell you, that all may be in order. Do you think I fear you? I do not, nor all the might of man's law! I have chosen the way of truth."

The Sergeant sank back into his chair, and picked up the pencil. "All right," he said somewhat thickly. "Go on."

Glass addressed Hannasyde. "Is it not enough that I say it was by my hand that these men died?"

"No. You know that's not enough. You must tell the whole truth." Hannasyde scanned the Constable's face, and added: "I don't think your sister's name need be made public, Glass. But I must know all the facts. She met Carpenter when he was touring the Midlands, and played for a week at Leicester, didn't she?"

"It is so. He seduced her with fair words and a liar's tongue. But she was a wanton at heart. She went willingly with that man of Belial, giving herself to a life of sin. From that day she was as one dead to us, her own people. Even her name shall be forgotten, for it is written that the wicked shall be silent in darkness. When she slew herself I rejoiced, for the flesh is weak, and the thought of her, yea, and her image, was as a sharp thorn."

"Yes," Hannasyde said gently. "Did you know that Fletcher was the man she loved?"

"No. I knew nothing. The Lord sent me to his place where he dwelt. And still I did not know." His hands clenched on his knees till the fingers whitened. "When I have met him he has smiled upon me, with his false lips, and has bidden me good-evening. And I have answered him civilly!"

The Sergeant gave an involuntary shiver. Hannasyde said: "When did you discover the truth?"

"Is it not plain to you? Upon the night that I killed him! When I told you that at 10.02 I saw the figure of a man coming from the side gate at Greystones I lied." His lip curled scornfully; he said: "The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going."

"You were an officer of the Law," Hannasyde said sternly. "Your word was considered to be above suspicion."

"It is so, and in that I acknowledge that I sinned. Yet what I did was laid upon me to do, for none other might wreak vengeance upon Ernest Fletcher. My sister took her own life, but I tell you he was stained with her blood! Would the Law have avenged her? He knew himself to be safe from the Law, but me he did not know!"

"We won't argue about that," Hannasyde said. "What happened on the evening of the 17th?"

"Not at 10.02, but some minutes earlier did I see Carpenter. At the corner of Maple Grove did I encounter him, face to face."

"Carpenter was the man Mrs. North saw?"

"Yes. She was not lying when she told of his visit to Fletcher, for he recounted all to me, while my hand was still upon his throat."

"What was his object in going to see Fletcher? Blackmail?"

"Even so. He too had been in ignorance, but once, before he served his time, he saw Fletcher at that gilded den of iniquity where my sister displayed her limbs to all men's gaze, in lewd dancing. And when he was released from prison, and my sister was dead, there was none to tell him who her lover was, except only one girl who recalled to his memory the man he had once seen. He remembered, but he could not discover the man's name until he saw a portrait of him one day in a newspaper. Then, finding that Ernest Fletcher was rich in this world's goods, he planned in his evil brain to extort money from him by threats of scandal and exposure. To this end, he came to Marley, not once but several times, at first seeking to enter by the front door, but being repulsed by Joseph Simmons who, when he would not state his business with Fletcher, shut the door upon him. It was for that reason that he entered by the side gate on the night of the 17th. But Fletcher laughed at him, and mocked him for a fool, and took him to the gate, and drove him forth. He went away, not towards the Arden Road, but to Vale Avenue. And there I met him."

He paused. Hannasyde said: "You recognised him?"

"I recognised him. But he knew not me until my hand was at his throat, and I spake my name in his ear. I would have slain him then, so great was the just rage consuming me, but he gasped to me to stay my hand, for my sister's death lay not at his door. I would not heed, but in his terror he cried out, choking, that he could divulge the name of the guilty man. I hearkened to him. Still holding him, I bade him tell what he knew. He was afraid with the fear of death. He confessed everything, even his own evil designs. When I knew the name of the man who had caused my sister's death, and remembered his false smile and his pleasant words to me, a greater rage entered into my soul, so that it shook. I let Carpenter go. My hand fell from his throat, for I was amazed. He vanished swiftly, I knew not whither. I cared nothing for him, for at that moment I knew what I must do. There was none to see. My mind, which had been set whirling, grew calm, yea, calm with the knowledge of righteousness! I went to that gate, and up the path to the open window that led into Fletcher's study. He sat at his desk, writing. When my shadow fell across the floor, he looked up. He was not afraid; he saw only an officer of the Law before him. He was surprised, but even as he spoke to me the smile was on his lips. Through a mist of red I saw that smile, and I struck him with my truncheon so that he died."

The Sergeant looked up from his shorthand notes. "Your truncheon!" he ejaculated. "Oh, my Lord!"

"The time?" Hannasyde asked.

"When I looked at the clock, the hands stood at seven minutes past ten. I thought what I should do, and it seemed to me that I saw my path clear before me. I picked up the telephone that stood upon the desk, and reported the death to my sergeant. But that which is crooked cannot be made straight. I was a false witness that speaketh lies, and through my testimony came darkness and perplexity, and the innocent was brought into tribulation. Yea, though they are enclosed in their own fat, though they are sinners in the sight of the Lord, every one, it was not just that they should suffer for my deed. I was troubled, and sore-broken, and my heart misgave me. Yet it seemed to me that all might remain hidden, for you who sought to unravel the mystery were astonished, and knew not which way to turn. But when the fingerprints were discovered to be those of Carpenter's hand, I saw that my feet had been led into a deep pit from which there could be no escape. When it was divulged to the Sergeant where Carpenter abode, I was standing at his elbow. I heard all, even that he dwelt in a basement room, and was become a waiter in an eating-house. The Sergeant gave me leave to go off duty, and I departed, wrestling with my own soul. I hearkened to the voice of the tempter, but a man shall not be established by wickedness. Carpenter was evil, but though he deserved to die, it was not for that reason that I killed him."

"You were the Constable the coffee-stall owner saw!" the Sergeant said.

"There was such a stall; I doubt not that the man saw me. I passed him as though upon my beat; I came to the house wherein Carpenter dwelt; I saw the light shining through the blind in the basement. I went down the area steps. The door at the bottom was not locked. I entered softly. When I walked into his room Carpenter was standing with his back to me. He turned, but he had no time to utter the scream I saw rising to his lips. Yet again I had his throat in my hands, and he could not prevail against me. I slew him as I slew Fletcher, and departed as I had come. But Fletcher I slew righteously. When I killed Carpenter I knew that I had committed the sin of murder, and my heart was heavy in me. Now you would arrest Neville Fletcher in my stead, but he is innocent, and it is time that the lip of truth be established." He turned towards the Sergeant, saying harshly: "Have you set down faithfully what I have recounted? Let it be copied out, and I will set my name to it."

"Yes, that will be done," Hannasyde said. "Meanwhile, Glass, you are under arrest."

He stepped back a pace to the door, and opened it. "All right, Inspector."

"Do you think I fear you?" Glass said, standing up. "You are puny men, both. I could slay you as I slew the others. I will not do it, for I have no quarrel with you, but set no handcuffs about my wrists! I will be free."

A couple of men who had come in at Hannasyde's call took him firmly by the arms. "You come along quiet, Glass," said Sergeant Cross gruffly. "Take it easy now!"

Sergeant Hemingway watched Glass go out between the two policemen, heard him begin to declaim from the Old Testament in a fanatical sing-song, and mopped his brow with his handkerchief, bereft for once of all power of speech.

"Mad," Hannasyde said briefly. "I thought he was verging on it."

The Sergeant found his voice. "Mad? A raving homicidal lunatic, and I've been trotting around with him as trusting as you please! My God, it gave me gooseflesh just to sit there listening to him telling his story!"

"Poor devil!"

"Well, that's one way of looking at it," said the Sergeant. "What about the late Ernest and Charlie Carpenter? Seems to me they got a pretty raw deal. And all for what? Just because a silly bit of fluff who was no better than she should be ran off with one of them, and was fool enough to kill herself because of the other! I don't see what you've got to pity Ichabod for. All that'll happen to him is that he'll be sent to Broadmoor, an expense to everybody, and have a high old time preaching death and destruction to the other loonies."

"And you call yourself a psychologist!" said Hannasyde.

"I call myself a flatfoot with a sense of justice, Super," replied the Sergeant firmly. "When I think of the trouble we've been put to, and that maniac ticking us off right and left for being ungodly - well, I daren't let myself think of it for fear I'll go and burst a blood-vessel. What was it first put you on to it?"

"Constable Mather's saying that Brown hadn't taken up his pitch when he passed up Barnsley Street. That, coupled with the conflicting evidence of the pair at the other end of the street, made me suddenly suspicious. The presence of a policeman on the occasions of both murders was the common factor I spoke of. But I admit it did seem to me in the wildest degree improbable. Which is why I didn't tell you anything about it until I'd worked it out a bit more thoroughly. As soon as I began to think it over, all sorts of little points cropped up. For instance, there was the letter from Angela Angel which we found in Carpenter's room. Do you remember the quotations from the Bible in it? Do you remember when we discovered Angela's photograph in Fletcher's drawer that Glass wouldn't look at it, but said something in rather an agitated way about her end being as bitter as wormwood? The more I thought about it the more certain I felt that I'd hit on the solution. When I traced Carpenter's old agent this morning, and got a list of the towns Carpenter visited on that tour his brother spoke of, all I did was to inquire of the police at each one whether a family of the name of Glass lived, or had ever lived, there. As soon as I discovered some Glasses living at Leicester, and heard from the local Superintendent that there had been a girl attached to the family who had run off with an actor some years ago, I knew I was right on to it. All things considered, I thought it wisest to come straight down here and confront Glass with what I knew - before he took it into his head to murder you," he added, twinkling.