“Who was the man?”
“The man?” Mary Whittaker laughed suddenly. “A man called Templeton—no friend of mine. It’s really funny that you should think he was a friend of mine. I would have killed him if I could.”
“But where is he? What are you doing? Don’t you know that everybody is looking for you? Why don’t you—?”
“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 as Mary Whittaker’s strong white hands closed upon her throat.
XXIII
—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. Why 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. O 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
