'Dear God!' Sinclair murmured, his voice breaking.
'Dear God!'
12
It was not until later that Billy heard a full account of how the village mechanic had come to be at Croft Manor. Hollingsworth had taken his statement while Sinclair was ringing the Yard and he had told Billy about it while they were sitting on the front steps of the house after midnight, taking a quick smoke break, while the blue uniforms milled about in the darkness of the driveway.
Hobday had returned that evening from Crow borough, where he was visiting a sick relative, to be told by his young son that Mr Merrick was having trouble with the Lagonda again. He'd rung the manor but failed to reach anyone. According to Mrs Gladly, who ran the village exchange, the phone was giving out an engaged signal. The receiver was off the hook, she told Hobday, but there was no one on the line.
He'd eaten a bite of supper and then tried ringing the house again, with the same result, and had been inclined to leave it at that, except soon afterwards one of the maids who lived in the village, Rose Allen, had passed by his home and urged him to go out to the manor. She didn't know whether or not the family had got away that afternoon, but if the car was still not working then Mr Merrick would need help with it that night so as to be able to leave first thing in the morning. Rose didn't know about any trouble with the telephone.
Hobday's own car was locked away in his garage.
He decided to cycle out to the manor. Lights were burning in the house when he arrived, but he got no response by ringing the doorbell and so had walked around the house to the kitchen door which he knew would be unlocked, and gone inside.
Pausing only to call out, 'Anyone at home? Anyone there?' he had passed through the kitchen to the main passageway that led to the drawing-room.
The door was open. Hobday looked in.
The first thing he saw was the double doors to the garden smashed in with the glass of both panes lying strewn on the carpet.
The second was the body of Agnes Bertram, the upstairs maid, sprawled on the hearth rug. He spied another body on the sofa by the fireplace, that of the elder Mrs Merrick.
At the far end of the drawing-room the door to the hall stood open and somehow Hobday's shaking legs carried him across to it.
He got no further. One glance through the door was enough. One look at the carnage there in the hall and he fled.
The mechanic's incoherent words had been cut short by the chief inspector, who ordered Madden to Croft Manor at once, taking Proudfoot and Styles with him.
While their car was being whistled up from across the green Billy heard Sinclair issue an order to Drummond.
The Sussex inspector was to ring his headquarters at Tunbridge Wells with an urgent request on the part of Scotland Yard to have all motorcyclists stopped and questioned throughout the night. The order should cover the entire county of Sussex and once that was done it should be extended, by request to other police authorities, to the adjoining counties.
'You must absolutely stress to them the need to act with caution.' Sinclair's consonants took on an added edge. 'The very greatest degree of caution. This man is extremely dangerous. But he must be stopped.' And then, as though speaking to himself, the chief inspector had added, 'God only knows when it happened. I fear we're already too late.'
To Madden, as the inspector was boarding the car, he said, 'I must get hold of the police surgeon. Then the Yard and the chief constable. I'll be with you as soon as I can.'
Inside the car Proudfoot was muttering about 'the children', mumbling to himself, so tired — and now suffering from shock in addition — that he seemed unable to fix his mind on any one thing.
'Whose children?' Madden was with the constable in the back. Billy sat up front with the driver, but twisted around in his seat so that he could listen.
'Mr and Mrs Merrick's… but they're supposed to be off on holiday… meant to leave today… Hobday didn't say… all dead he said… all dead 'The Merricks are the family who live at Croft Manor?' Madden's voice was patient, coaxing.
'That's right… always been Merricks at the manor … There's old Mrs Merrick and her son, that's Mr William, and his wife and their girl and boy… and there's Annie… Annie McConnell… and the maids and the nanny… No, wait!" The constable's brow knotted in pain as he strove to concentrate. T heard all the staff had been given the time off…' He fell silent, nodding. Then he spoke again: 'All dead he said… all dead…'
They were driving down a dark tunnelled lane beneath over-hanging branches. The driver slowed as a pair of iron gates appeared in his headlights. Proudfoot jerked forward in his seat. 'There it is,' he said.
'That's the manor.'
Billy sprang out of the front. One of the gates was standing half open and he drew them both wide, then followed the car down a short driveway, which ended by turning back on itself around a circular flower-bed.
Madden was already at the front door as he joined them.
'Locked.'
Proudfoot led them at a trot around to the side of the house where light fell through an open door on to a bricked yard and on to the wall of a kitchen garden beyond it. Madden halted them at the door. 'Follow me. Don't touch anything. Watch where you step.'
He led them through the lighted kitchen to a door which gave on to a passageway. Billy tried to stay on his heels, but by the time he had stepped out of the kitchen the inspector was already turning into a doorway several paces down the passage. When Billy got there himself he stopped on the threshold.
Madden was bending over a woman's body in front of a fireplace, and Billy was overwhelmed by his earlier memory of the drawing-room at Melling Lodge.
The body of the maid on the floor — the smashed French windows.
Here it was again, like a scene of horror replayed in all its ghastly details.
'Check the body on the couch. See if she's alive.'
The inspector's peremptory tone jerked Billy back to the present.
A sofa stood with its back to him. It wasn't until he went around it that he saw the grey-haired woman who was stretched out there. He fumbled for her wrist.
Blue eyes stared at him unblinking. She wore a silk blouse stained in the centre with a circle of blood the size of a saucer. On the carpet at his feet Billy noticed several potatoes. Potatoes? He could find no pulse in her wrist.
Madden was already moving. He had left the body on the hearth rug and was skirting the area of broken glass, heading for a door at the opposite end of the drawing-room. Billy followed him, but the inspector stopped in the doorway, blocking his view of what lay beyond. He stood there for several seconds, then turned around.
'Constable!' He spoke past Billy's shoulder.
'Sir?'
Billy glanced back and saw Proudfoot standing by the body of the grey-haired woman.
"I want you to check all the rooms downstairs.'
Madden's voice carried a note of command. 'Never mind what's in the hall. Do you mark me?'
Proudfoot stared at him for a moment. Then he nodded. 'Yes, sir.'
'Come along,' Madden said to Billy. He turned and went through the doorway and Billy saw they were entering a spacious hall with a double staircase to the left coming down from the upper floor. As Madden headed that way Billy glanced to his right and saw a wall splattered with blood. Blood lay in pools on the polished stone floor, too, and the carpet had been dragged aside and swept into an untidy heap. There was a body there.
'Hurry up, Constable!' Madden spoke sharply. He was already half-way up the staircase. Billy ran up the steps behind him. When they reached the upper floor the inspector turned to him. 'Check the servants' rooms upstairs. Meet me down here.'