“That’s me, Piggy,” said Hugo. “And I’ll tell you something mighty strange. Nobody I encountered seemed in the least surprised at what I told them. Disturbed, excited, even shocked, but not surprised. The official people at Witham were clearly keeping something back, and my aunt, when she’d heard my story, simply closed her mind to it and discussed a problem she was having with the committee of the Women’s Institute. But she knew something. I’m sure of it.”
Mr. Piggin seemed to be faintly amused. He said, “If you had opened a newspaper three or four months ago you’d have read little or nothing about indiscretions in Whitehall or massacres in Kurdistan. The front page of the paper and other pages as well would have been full of the activities of the creature they christened the Knifeman.”
“Are you telling me that yesterday was not the first—”
“It was the sixth known occasion on which he has struck. You have not seen one of today’s papers? No. Well, I can assure you that he has regained his position on the front page. Was there nothing in the papers where you were?”
“The Italian press don’t pay much attention to crime in other countries. They’ve got plenty of their own. Though now that you mention it, I do recall a brief comment about a serial murderer. When did it all start?”
Mr. Piggin had been turning over the pages of his working diaries. He said, “The first one was sixteen months ago, on Tuesday, November tenth. The next, near the beginning of last year, on Friday, February nineteenth. Then on June fifteenth, August thirteenth — which was also a Friday — and on Monday, October eleventh.”
“How did they know that these were all the same man?”
“It could not, of course, be known,” said Mr. Piggin precisely, “but the evidence that it was so was almost conclusive. His procedure in every case was the same. He waited until he was alone with one other man in the carriage, walked up to him as though he was making for the door, and struck him on the head with a loaded stick or life preserver. As his victim crumpled up he produced his second weapon. This the pathologists, in every case, thought to be a long, slender surgical-type lancet. He drove this upward, through the back of his victim’s neck, into his brain, killing him instantly.”
Although Mr. Piggin was speaking flatly, as though he was explaining a legal problem, his words recalled the horror of the moment and Hugo found himself shuddering. He said, “The man who does this — he must be mad — but he must also be wholly ordinary in appearance, so as not to excite any suspicion of his intentions.”
“Wholly so. And this agrees with the only description we have of him.”
“You mean — he was seen—”
“Exercise a little patience,” said Mr. Piggin, “and I will endeavour to explain. After five attacks, commuters — as you can imagine — became careful. They took precautions. They travelled, where possible, in parties. Then came this period of more than three months in which nothing happened. Precautions were relaxed — prematurely, you may think — but such is human nature.”
Mr. Piggin was now studying his current year’s diary.
“On Thursday, January twentieth, a Mr. Osbaldistone was travelling to Bures, where he planned to spend a long weekend with an old friend. This involved changing at Marks Tey. The train was slowing as it approached Kelvedon, the station before Marks Tey, when he suddenly realised that he was alone in the carriage with one other man and that this man was advancing on him, with his left hand in his overcoat pocket. The consciousness of his peril deprived him, he said, of the power to move or shout. He was mesmerised. Most fortunately, at that moment a young man — the son of the house that he was visiting — came through the connecting vestibule into the carriage. He said, ‘Mr. Osbaldistone, isn’t it? I guessed it might be you. You’re spending the weekend with us.’ By this time the other man had opened the carriage door and departed. When Mr. Osbaldistone related his experience, as he did, with some embarrassment, that evening, his hosts impressed on him that it was his duty to communicate with the police. Whether he was right or wrong in his suspicions, it was at least possible that he was the first man to come face-to-face with the killer and live to tell the tale. ‘You must describe him,’ they said.”
Because the first victim, a Mr. Mathieson, had worked in Stepney and lived in Romford, both places being in No. 2 Area East, the case had been assigned to the head of that area, Chief Superintendent Oliphant. He had delegated the routine handling of it to Chief Inspector Mayburgh at Cable Street, and it was to Mayburgh that Mr. Osbaldistone duly reported.
Mr. Piggin said, “I gathered from them — Osbaldistone is, by the way, a client of this firm and an old friend of your father’s — that it was not a happy experience. I’m sure he did his best, but it amounted to very little. He said, quite reasonably, that he wasn’t examining the man’s face. His attention was fixed on his left hand, which appeared to be drawing some sort of weapon out of his coat pocket. He couldn’t see more than the handle, but yes, it might have been a life preserver, something like that. ‘Or the whole thing might have been your imagination,’ says Mayburgh. ‘Yes, it might have been,’ Osbaldistone agreed. ‘But I was too worked up to notice precise details.’ All this was in answer to a series of bad-tempered questions and grunts. The inspector considered that Mr. Osbaldistone had no right to get worked up. He should have been making a careful inspection of his assailant.”
“Mayburgh sounds a bit of a brute,” said Hugo.
“He’s an old-fashioned rhinoceros who tries to arrive at the truth by butting at it, head first. His second-in-command, Inspector Barley, on the other hand, is what you might call — hum — a scientific policeman.”
Hugo gathered from Mr. Piggin’s tone that his description of Inspector Barley was not intended to be entirely complimentary.
“In the end,” he said, “he got nothing out of Mr. O. except that his presumed attacker looked, in every way, like a normal City worker. Pale face, clean-shaven, indeterminate features, no distinguishing marks. When he said that the man was ‘ordinary’ he had said it all. His failure on that occasion may account for the inspector’s wish to question you.”
“For God’s sake! Why me? I never even saw the man.”
“The working of the inspector’s mind is a closed book to me. All I can tell you is that there was a message on our answer-phone when I arrived that he would like to see you at ten o’clock. It’s a quarter to ten now. Better not keep the rhinoceros waiting.”
When Hugo was ushered into Mayburgh’s office he saw a man who could have been nothing but a middle-ranking policeman. One who had started at the bottom and crashed upwards not caring what toes he trod on. The red face, bristling hair, and angry eyes said it all. He barked at Hugo to sit down and opened fire with the observation that Hugo should not have disturbed the body.
“But I had to be certain the man was dead.”
“Were you in any doubt about it?”
“Not really, no.”
“Then why did you touch him?”
“If I hadn’t, he’d have fallen onto the floor. You wouldn’t have wanted that, surely.”
“It’s not what I want, it’s what the medical experts want. They can make useful deductions if they find the body exactly as it was at the point of death.”
This seemed like nonsense to Hugo, but had evidently gained the approval of the young man in glasses who was sitting quietly in the corner. The scientific Inspector Barley?
“Reverting to a point where you might be able to help us. It is fairly clear that the attack took place between Ingatestone and Chelmsford and that the assassin left the train at Chelmsford. Did you take any note of the people who got off?”