“That’s why!”
Mary Whittaker flung her ten o’clock edition of the Evening Banner, which was lying on the sofa. Miss Climpson read the glaring headlines:
AMAZING NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN CROW’S BEACH CRIME.
“WOUNDS ON BODY INFLICTED AFTER DEATH.
“FAKED FOOTPRINTS.”
Miss Climpson gasped with amazement, and bent over the smaller type. “How extraordinary!” she said, looking up quickly.
Not quite quickly enough. The heavy brass lamp missed her head indeed, but fell numbingly on her shoulder. She sprang to her feet with a loud shriek, just Mary Whittaker’s strong white hands closed upon her throat.
Chapter 23 And Smote Him, Thus
“ ‘Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but ’tis enough, ‘twill serve.”
Romeo and Juliet
Lord Peter missed both Miss Climpson’s communications. Absorbed in the police inquiry, he never thought to go back to Leahampton. Bunter had duly arrived with “Mrs. Merdle” on the Saturday evening. Immense police activity was displayed in the neighbourhood of the downs, and at Southampton and Portsmouth, in order to foster the idea that the authorities supposed the “gang” to be lurking in those districts. Nothing as a matter of fact, was farther from Parker’s thoughts. “Let her think she is safe,” he said, “and she’ll come back. It’s the cat-and-mouse act for us, old man.” Wimsey fretted. He wanted the analysis of the body to be complete and loathed the thought of the long days he had to wait. And he had small hope of the result.
“It’s all very well sitting round with your large disguised policemen outside Mrs. Forrest’s flat,” he said irritably, over the bacon and eggs on Monday morning, “but you do realise, don’t you, that we’ve still got no proof of murder. Not in one single case.”
“That’s so,” replied Parker, placidly.
“Well, doesn’t it make your blood boil?” said Wimsey.
“Hardly,” said Parker. “This kind of thing happens too often. If my blood boiled every time there was a delay in getting evidence, I should be in a perpetual fever. Wy worry? It may be that perfect crime you’re so fond of talking about- the one that leaves no trace. You ought to be charmed with it.”
“Oh, I daresay. 0 Turpitude, where are the charms that sages have seen in thy face? Time’s called at the Criminals’ Arms, and there isn’t a drink in the place. Wimsey’s Standard Poets, with emendations by Thingummy. As a matter of fact, I’m not at all sure that Miss Dawson’s death wasn’t the perfect crime- if only the Whittaker girl had stopped at that and not tried to cover it up. If you notice, the deaths are becoming more and more violent, elaborate and unlikely in appearance. Telephone again. If the Post Office accounts don’t show a handsome profit on telephones this year it won’t be your fault.”
“It’s the cap and shoes,” said Parker, mildly. “They’ve traced them. They were ordered from an outfitter’s in Stepney, to; be sent to the Rev. H. Dawson, Peveril Hotel, Bloomsbury, to await arrival.”
“The Peveril again!”
“Yes. I recognise the hand of Mr. Trigg’s mysterious charmer. The Rev. Hallelujah Dawson’s card, with message ‘Please give parcel to bearer,’ was presented by a District Messenger next day, with a verbal explanation that the gentleman found he could not get up to Town after all. The messenger, obeying instructions received by telephone, took the parcel to a lady in a nurse’s dress on the platform at Charing Cross. Asked to describe the lady, he said she was tall and wore blue glasses and the usual cloak and bonnet. So that’s that.”
“How were the goods paid for?”
“Postal order, purchased at the West Central office at the busiest moment of the day.”
“And when did all this happen?”
“That’s the most interesting part of the business. Last month, shortly before Miss Whittaker and Miss Findlater returned from Kent. This plot was well thought out beforehand.”
“Yes. Well, that’s something more for you to pin on to Mrs. Forrest. It looks like proof of conspiracy, but whether it’s proof of murder- ”
“It’s meant to look like a conspiracy of Cousin Hallelujah’s, I suppose. Oh, well, we shall have to trace the letters and the typewriter that wrote them and interrogate all these people, I suppose. God! what a grind! Hullo! Come in! Oh, it’s you, doctor?”
“Excuse my interrupting your breakfast,” said Dr. Faulkner, “but early this morning, while lying awake, I was visited with a bright idea. So I had to come and work it off on you while it was fresh. About the blow on the head and the marks on the arms, you know. Do you suppose they served a double purpose? Besides making it look like the work of a gang, could they be hiding some other, smaller mark? Poison, for instance, could be injected, and the mark covered up by scratches and cuts inflicted after death.”
“Frankly,” said Parker, “I wish I could think it. It’s a very sound idea and may be the right one. Our trouble is, that in the two previous deaths which we have been investigating, and which we are inclined to think form a part of the same series as this one, there have been no signs or traces of poison discoverable in the bodies at all by any examination or analysis that skill can devise. In fact, not only no proof of poison, but no proof of anything but natural death.”
And he related the cases in fuller detail.
“Odd,” said the doctor. “And you think this may turn out the same way. Still, in this case the death can’t very well have been natural- or why these elaborate efforts to cover it up?”
“It wasn’t,” said Parker; “the proof being that- as we now know- the plot was laid nearly two months ago.”
“But the method!” cried Wimsey, “the method! Hang it all- here are all we people with our brilliant brains and our professional reputations- and this half-trained girl out of a hospital can beat the lot of us. How was it done?”
“It’s probably something so simple and obvious that it’s never occurred to us,” said Parker. “The sort of principle you learn when you’re in the fourth form and never apply to anything. Rudimentary. Like that motor-cycling imbecile we met at Crofton, who sat in the rain and prayed for help because he’d never heard of an air-lock in his feed. Now I daresay that boy had learnt- What’s the matter with you?”
“My God!” cried Wimsey. He smashed his hand down among the breakfast things, upsetting his cup. “My God! But that’s it! You’ve got it- you’ve done it- Obvious? God Almighty- it doesn’t need a doctor. A garage hand could have told you. People die of it every day. Of course, it was an air-lock in the feed.”
“Bear up, doctor,” said Parker, “he’s always like this when he gets an idea. It wears off in time. D’you mind explaining yourself, old thing? ”
Wimsey’s pallid face was flushed. He turned on the doctor.
“Look here,” he said, “the body’s a pumping engine, isn’t it? The jolly old heart pumps the blood round the arteries and back through the veins and so on, doesn’t it? That’s what keeps things working, what? Round and home again in two minutes- that sort of thing?”
“Certainly.”
“Little valve to let the blood out; ’nother little valve to let it in- just like an internal combustion engine, which it is?”
“Of course.”
“And’s’posin’ that stops?”
“You die.”
“Yes. Now, look here. S’posin’ you take a good big hypodermic, empty, and dig it into one of the big arteries and push the handle- what would happen? What would happen, doctor? You’d be pumpin’ a big air-bubble into your engine feed, wouldn’t you? What would become of your circulation, then?”
“It would stop it,” said the doctor, without hesitation. “That is why nurses have to be particular to fill the syringe properly, especially doing an intravenous injection.”