What set him off? Why did he start killing? And why those particular women?' The chief inspector shook his head with a sigh. 'Questions, nothing but questions. And no clear answers. It's the sort of thing Socrates used to enjoy, they tell me. But Socrates wasn't a policeman.'
After a brief visit to Folkestone central police station to thank Chief Inspector Mulrooney for his assistance Bennett caught an early-afternoon train back to London.
He had named the following Wednesday as the day on which Sinclair would present his report to the commissioner.
'That should give us enough time to wrap things up, sir. I'll leave tomorrow, but I'm going to Stonehill first. We need an account from the Merricks for the record of Mrs Aylward's visit and whether either of them recalls seeing Pike on that occasion. Chief Inspector Derry, from Maidstone, is doing the same at Bentham for us. I'll speak to him over the weekend.'
'What about Madden?' the deputy asked.
'He'll return to London tomorrow afternoon and go down to Highfield on Sunday.'
'Sunday!' Bennett was moved to protest. 'For heaven's sake, the man's been working non-stop.
Hasn't he earned at least one day off?'
'He has indeed, sir,' Sinclair replied solemnly. 'And I only wish you could persuade him of it.'
'Ah! I see! It's his idea?'
'He insists on going himself. But that's Inspector Madden all over. A slave to his sense of duty.'
Quick-witted though he was, Bennett realized he'd missed something in this last exchange. But he could deduce no more from the chief inspector's pious demeanour as they shook hands than that, in some fashion, his leg had just been well pulled.
Sinclair left early the following day for Stonehill.
Madden's departure for London was delayed till the afternoon. Sergeant Booth accompanied him to the station. They stopped off at the hospital on the way to inquire after Constable Styles and were directed to one of the wards. Billy was sitting up in bed in hospital pyjamas with his hands bandaged and his face white with cream. He appealed to Madden, 'There's nothing wrong with me, sir. Can't you get me discharged?'
'It's out of my hands, I'm afraid. I've already asked.
They're keeping you in till Monday.'
Even Madden's smile, rare thing that it was, couldn't lighten the young man's dejection. Nor was he cheered a few minutes later when a nurse arrived with a glass jar of violets, which she placed on his bedside table.
'From the young lady in Ward B,' she said to Billy, with a simper.
'What's this, then?' Booth's brown eyes twinkled.
'Miss Bridgewater's the young woman the constable saved from the fire,' the nurse explained. 'She's hoping he'll go and visit her in her ward so she can thank him in person.'
'Constable!' Madden's frown was back.
'Do I have to, sir?'
'You've just said there's nothing wrong with you.'
Billy looked to Booth for support, but found none.
'Make the most of it, lad,' was the only advice received from that quarter. 'When it comes to the fair sex, you're never a hero for long.'
Mrs Aylward's Bentley was well remembered in Highfield, the lady less so, though both Alf Birney and his daughter recalled her coming into the shop to make a purchase.
'Late April it was,' Stackpole told Madden. 'May Birney remembers her buying a bunch of daffodils and asking the way to Melling Lodge.'
The car had been parked in the street outside the shop and it was there that Miss Birney had had her glimpse of Pike.
'She saw him standing in the road beside the car, side-on, just like she told us. He was wearing his chauffeur's cap. It's all come back to her now, she says.'
The inspector had arrived to find his work mostly done. Stackpole had taken fresh statements from the Birneys. He had them in his tunic pocket, ready for Madden's perusal.
'Oh, and I have a message for you from Dr Black well, sir,' the constable added, with an unusually wooden expression. 'She says she'll be back in her surgery by three.'
'Thank you, Will,' Madden replied, equally stiff faced.
He had telephoned Helen the night before and discovered she was committed to accompanying her father to a luncheon party in Farnham that Sunday.
'But I'll drop him at the house when we get back and meet you in the village. Keep an eye out for my car.
My darling, I long to see you.'
Madden, tongue-tied as always, could only murmur that he loved her, but that seemed enough.
Stackpole had been waiting on the station platform to greet him. The tall constable's smile had warmed the grey autumn day. 'It's good to have you back, sir.
The village is a different place since we heard the news. There are some people waiting to shake your hand, I can tell you.'
A good many of them seemed to have gathered at the Rose and Crown, where Stackpole suggested they look in for a bite of lunch. Having wrung at least a dozen palms, Madden sought refuge in the familiar surroundings of the snug bar, which Mr Poole, the landlord, had kept private for them. While the constable ordered beer and sandwiches, he settled down to read the Birneys' statements.
'It shook me when I realized how long ago it was he first came here.' Stackpole had removed his helmet.
A pint of amber bitter nestled in his big hand. 'Late April, according to Miss Birney. He must have kept coming back after that.'
Madden grunted. He was still busy reading.
'From May to the end of July — that's three months.
What was he doing up there in the woods? Building a dugout, I know, but after that…?'
The inspector had gone silent. Stackpole stole a glance at him. 'What is it, sir?'
Madden's forefinger rested on a line in the statement he was reading. 'Dr Blackwell…?' A frown creased his forehead.
The constable looked over his shoulder. 'That's May's statement, is it? Yes, she remembers the doctor being in the shop that morning. It was just before Mrs Aylward came in. That was when she noticed Pike outside.'
'"I saw him through the shop window. He was standing looking back up the street, staring hard at something. He just stood there like a statue 'Yes, sir?' Stackpole still hadn't grasped the inspector's point.
'Looking at what, Will? Staring at whom}'
Understanding dawned slowly in the constable's eyes. 'Christ!' he said. He'd turned pale.
'They resembled each other, didn't they? She told me once people used to take them for sisters.' Madden sat with his head bowed. 'Pike saw her first, Will.
Before he ever set eyes on Lucy Fletcher.'
The inspector raised his eyes. 'Was that why he was up in the woods for so long? Couldn't he make up his mind between them? We've always wondered why he came back. He had his bag with him, so we thought he'd come to collect something. But that wasn't it. He was bringing what he needed.'
His companion reached over and pressed his arm.
'Don't, sir,' Stackpole urged him. 'Put it from your mind. It's over now.'
Madden's face was stricken. 'This stays between us, Will,' he said quietly. He fastened his gaze on the constable. 'Not a word to Dr Blackwell about it. Never! Do you hear me?"
They found Tom Cooper, the Fletchers' gardener, trimming the hedge in front of his own cottage at the end of a lane off the paved main road. He took off his cracked leather gloves to shake the inspector's hand. 'I was that pleased to hear he was dead, sir, though I wish you'd caught him. I was hoping to see the bastard swing.'
Cooper told them something they hadn't known before. Mrs Aylward had taken two days to complete the painting and had spent the intervening night in a hotel in Guildford.