Brady told him everything, just the way it had happened, from his first awakening on the Embankment, to the events in the flat.
When he had finished, Mallory sat in silence for a while, a slight frown on his face. “What it really comes down to is this. You maintain you saw a man on the Embankment in the fog who you later saw again, here in this flat, standing behind Marie Duclos, just before you passed out.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“In other words, you’re implying that this man committed the murder.”
“He must have done.”
“But why, Brady?” Mallory said gently. “Why pick on you?”
“Because I was here,” Brady said. “I suppose it could have been any poor sucker she happened to be entertaining.”
“But if he was here, where did he go afterwards?” Mallory said softly. “You and the woman were the only people to use the front door all night. The night-watchman swears to that.”
“How did you know something was wrong here?” Brady said.
Mallory shrugged. “The nightwatchman heard her scream and then a candlestick was thrown through the window. He knocked them up next door and asked them to ring for us. He still had the door under observation the whole time. Nobody left.”
“There must be a rear entrance.”
Mallory shook his head. “There’s a yard and an overgrown garden with a six-foot fence of iron railings dividing it from the graveyard.”
“It’s still a possibility,” Brady said. “And what about the old girl downstairs? Maybe she saw something?”
“The downstairs flat hasn’t had a tenant for two months now.” Mallory shook his head and sighed. “It won’t do, Brady. For one thing, you told me you first saw this man on the Embankment before the Duclos woman spoke to you. Now that just doesn’t make sense.”
“But I couldn’t have killed her,” Brady said. “Only a madman could have beaten a woman to death like that.”
“Or a man so drunk that he didn’t know what he was doing,” Mallory said quietly.
Brady sat there, staring helplessly at him. The whole world seemed to be closing in on him and there was nothing he could do about it — nothing at all.
The door opened and the young constable came in and handed Mallory a slip of paper. “Sergeant Gower thought you might find this interesting, sir.”
The door closed behind him and Mallory quickly scanned the paper. After a while he said, “It would appear that you’re a pretty violent man when the mood takes you, Brady.”
Brady frowned. “What the hell are you getting at?”
“We’ve just run a quick check to see if anything was known about you. Since flying in from Kuwait three days ago, you seem to have spent the intervening time in trying to drink yourself into an early grave. On Tuesday night you had to be ejected from a pub on the King’s Road after knocking down the landlord who refused to serve you because of your condition. Later that night, you were involved in a fight in a drinking club in Soho. When the bouncer tried to throw you out, you broke his arm, but the owner refused to press charges. You were finally picked up by the police in the Haymarket at four a.m., drunk and incapable. It says here that you were fined two pounds at Bow Street yesterday. Quite a record.”
Brady got to his feet and paced restlessly across the room. “O.K., I’ll tell you about it.”
He stood looking out of the window, down into the street, watching the policemen standing under the street lamp, their capes shining with rain.
“I’m a constructional engineer. Work mostly on bridges and dams and that sort of thing. I met a girl in London last year called Katie Holdt. She was German, working for some family over here as a children’s nurse while she learned the language. I fell pretty hard, wanted to marry her, but I was short of cash.”
“And what was your solution?” Mallory said.
Brady shrugged. “There was an opening in Kuwait — a new dam. The money was exceptional as nobody wanted the job. Working conditions were pretty grim, mainly because of the heat. I took it on, lived off the company for ten months and had my salary credited to Katie here in London.”
Mallory looked pained. “And the usual thing happened, I suppose?”
Brady nodded. “I flew in three days ago after ten months of hell and discovered from her employer that she’d returned to Germany a month ago to get married.” He slammed a balled fist into his palm. “And there was nothing I could do about it — not a damned thing. It was all legal.”
“And so you decided to get drunk,” Mallory said. “So drunk, you didn’t know what you were doing for most of the time.”
Brady shook his head deliberately. “O.K., Inspector, so I got drunk. I even got mixed up in a couple of brawls, but I didn’t kill that woman.”
Mallory got to his feet. He crossed to a small dressing-table, picked up a mirror and held it out. “Take a look!” he said. “Take a good look!”
The blood from the scratches had dried and they looked ugly and somehow sinister. Brady touched them gently with his fingertips. “You mean she did that?” he said in a whisper.
Mallory nodded. “The doctor took blood and skin from underneath the fingernails of her right hand. He’ll examine you when we get down to the station.”
Brady clenched his hands to keep them from shaking. “I’m an American citizen. I’d like to get in touch with my Embassy.”
“That’s already been taken care of,” Mallory said, opening the door into the bathroom.
Brady made one more try. He paused in the doorway. “Let’s go over this thing again, Mallory. There’s got to be an answer somewhere.”
“There’s only one thing might help you now, Brady,” Mallory told him, “and that’s a lawyer. I’d ask your Embassy to get you a good one. The best there is. You’re going to need all the help you can get.”
Gower was standing outside and his eyes glittered malevolently as Brady moved past him. They took him downstairs and paused at the top of the steps while Gower produced a pair of handcuffs.
It was still foggy and the rain bounced from the asphalt surface of the street in solid rods. Several police cars were parked in the road and a small group of curious people crowded along the railings, held back by a couple of constables. It looked as if most of the inhabitants of the quiet street had turned out, probably awakened by the unaccustomed noise of the cars.
As Gower clamped one steel bracelet around the American’s wrist, Brady stiffened suddenly. Standing out from the mass of faces was one he was already only too familiar with. In the same moment, its owner melted into the fog at the rear of the crowd and disappeared.
Brady pulled away from Gower and jumped down into the crowd, the handcuffs swinging from one wrist. He burst his way through and then someone stretched out a foot and tripped him so that he fell heavily. As he started to get up, they were upon him.
Gower twisted his arm and Brady turned desperately as the inspector came forward, “I saw him, Mallory,” he said. “He was there at the back of the crowd watching. He can’t have got far.”
In the light of the street lamp, Mallory looked suddenly more tired than ever. “For God’s sake, cut it out, Brady! This isn’t going to get you anywhere.”
Brady’s control snapped completely. He lifted an elbow into Gower’s face, tore free, and plunged through the crowd, striking out madly at the faces which surrounded him.
It was no good. He pulled away from the clutching hands and turned with his back to the railings. “Come on!” he cried. “Come and get me, you bastards!”
They came in a rush, Gower leading the way. Brady smashed a fist into the detective’s face and then a staff cracked down across his right arm. He swung again with his left. Someone twisted it behind his back and they forced him down against the wet flagstones. He cursed and kicked out wildly.