"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."