SECOND STROKE OF THE MURDERER
LONDON was going home. You could hear the buzz of the liberated, that swelled in a calling from the dazzle of Piccadilly Circus: shadows moving on misty yellow-and-red sketches, cars jerking like the electric-signs, and their horns honking through it with a weary plaintiveness. This we could perceive up the long hill as the police-car nosed past the foot of the Haymarket. Waves of lighted buses rose at us and plunged past down Cockspur Street with a flying hoot; and H.M. leaned out and gave a very tolerable raspberry in reply. He did not like buses. He said they were required to put on extra speed just as they shaved round corners. That was why he gave the raspberry. By accident, at a break in the traffic, he delivered a very malevolent one into the face of a policeman on duty at Waterloo Place; and Masters was not amused. It was a police-car, and he said he did not want it thought that the C.I.D. sent people around doing that sort of thing.
But once up St. James's Street, through the crush in Piccadilly and into the quiet of the shuttered houses northwards, we were all silent. As we passed the Berkeley, I thought of Major Featherton sitting on a tall bar-stool and smirking in a fatherly way at a young lady who enjoyed his dancing: very much a contrast to the queer, bitter face of Lady Benning that would always hover at the back of any picture in which these characters were concerned. 'Something's going to happen....' It was difficult to fit those uneasy words even into the rather sinister quiet of Charles Street. And yet it did....
Somebody was plying the knocker of Number 25, filling in the intervals by pressing the bell. As our car drew up, the caller came down the steps under a street-lamp; and we saw that once more McDonnell was waiting in the rain.
McDonnell said: 'I can't make him answer the door, sir. He thinks it's another reporter. They've been after him all day.'
'Where's Miss Latimer?' barked Masters. 'What's the matter? - wouldn't she come, or were you too polite to use pressure?' (It was remarkable how the Inspector's manner underwent a change when he met a subordinate). 'Sir Henry especially wanted to see her. What's happened now?'
'She wasn't at home. She'd gone out calling on people to see whether she could find Ted, and she hasn't got back yet. I'm sorry, sir ... but I waited half an hour to see her myself, after I'd got back from chasing all over Euston Station. I'll tell you about it. She and I were both mad good and proper over that telephone call---“
H.M. had been sticking his neck out of the car like a turtle, and somewhat damaging his hat in so doing; he was making remarks, not in an amiable manner. When the situation was explained, he said, 'So' Painfully he climbed out and waddled up the steps. He roared, 'Open the goddammed door, you!' in a voice that must have carried as far as Berkeley Square, and then hurled his full weight against it. This was effective. A rather pale, middle-aged man opened it, after turning on some lights. The middle-aged man explained nervously that reporters had been impersonating officers of the law
'That's all right, son,' said H.M. in a voice abruptly turned dull and disinterested. 'Chair.'
'Sir?'
'Chair. Thing you sit in. Ah! Here.'
The hallway inside was high and narrow, with `a polished hardwood floor, on which one or two small starved-looking rugs were laid out like hazards on a golf course. I could understand why Masters had said the whole place resembled a museum. It was swept and stiff and unlived-in, and there were too many shadows arranged as precisely as the scanty furniture. Faint concealed lights along the cornices illumined a piece of snaky-looking white sculpture towering up over a black-upholstered chair. Darworth had known the value of atmosphere. As an anteroom to the supernatural, it was uncannily effective. H.M. did not seem impressed. He spread himself out in the black chair, wheezing, and Masters went into action at once.
'Sir Henry, this is Sergeant McDonnell. He's under me in this business. I've taken an interest in Bert, and he's ambitious. Now, tell Sir Henry'
'Hey!' said H.M., with a powerful contraction of memory. 'I know you. Knew your father, of course. Old Grosbeak. He was against me when I stood for Parliament, and I got licked, thank God. I know everybody, y'see. Last time I saw you, son..”
'Report, Sergeant,' said Masters curtly.
'Yes, sir,' returned McDonnell, bringing himself to attention. 'I'll begin at the time you sent me to Miss Latimer's home and went to Whitehall for your appointment.
'They live in a big place in Hyde Park Gardens. It's too big for them, as a matter of fact; but they've lived there since old Commander Latimer died and the mother went to live with her people in Scotland.' He hesitated. 'Old Mrs. Latimer's not - not quite right in the head, you know. Whether that explains anything of Ted's erratic conduct, I don't know. I'd been in the house before, but, queerly enough, I'd never met Marion until last week.'
Masters warned him to keep to the point, and the sergeant went on:
'When I went round this afternoon, she was rather cut up. She as much as told me I was a filthy spy-which,' said McDonnell bitterly, 'I suppose I was. But she forgot that, and appealed to me as a friend of Ted. It was like this: she'd no sooner got done talking to you, sir, than she got another phone-call....'
'Who from?'
'It purported to be Ted. She said it didn't sound like his voice, but that it might have been; and she didn't know what to think. `Ted' said he was at Euston Station, and not to worry: that he was after somebody, and might not be home until tomorrow. She started to tell him that the police were looking for him, but he rang off immediately.
'So naturally she wanted me to hop over to Euston Station; find out if he meant to take a train or had taken one; try to trace him, anyhow, and drag him back before he made a fool of himself. That was about twenty minutes past three o'clock. In case it was a hoax, she was going after some friends of his and try to trace him in that way '
H.M., who was stroking his plowshare chin, with his hat on the back of his head and his eyes half closed, interrupted.
'Hold on, son. Just a minute. Did young Latimer say anything about taking a train?'
'That's more or less the idea she got, sir. You see, he'd taken a bag with him when he went out this morning; and, since he was phoning from a railway station '
''More jumpin' to conclusions,' observed H.M. sourly. 'Seems to be a favorite sport. All right. What happened then?'
'I got over to Euston as fast as I could, and spent over an hour combing the place. It was a warm trail, and Marion gave me a good photograph; but no result. Only one remotely possible identification, when a platform-guard thought he might have gone through on the 3.45 express for Edinburgh; but I couldn't get any identification at the ticket-window, and the train had gone. I don't know what to think. It might have been a hoax.'
'Dj'you wire the police at Edinburgh?' demanded Masters.
'Yes, sir. I also sent a wire to-' he checked himself.
'Well?'
'It was a personal wire. Ted's mother lives in Edinburgh. Hang it, sir, I knew Ted pretty well; I couldn't imagine what would have taken him up there, if he did go, but I thought I'd better warn him for God's sake to get back to London before he found himself in the dock.... Then I came back to the Latimer place, and found out the next queer thing.'
McDonnell's eyes roved about the dim, harsh-shadowed hall. He said:
'One of the servants heard a voice talking to Ted at just about daylight this morning. They said it was high and queer and talking very rapidly. They said it came either from in his room, or the balcony outside.'
There was something in those unadorned words which brought new terrors into the cold place. McDonnell felt it; even Masters felt it; and it conjured up shapeless images without faces. H.M. sat with his arms folded, blinking vacantly; but I felt that at any moment he might get up. Masters said: 'Voice? What voice?'
'Couldn't be identified, sir.... This is the way it was. When I went to the house first, Marion had mentioned something about the servants' hearing things in the house that morning, and she wanted me to look into it. But I put it off until I returned from Euston. She had gone out, so I got the servants together and put the question.”
'You remember, Ted seemed a bit - well, shaky and upset when he left us last night. At about half-past four this morning the butler at Latimers', level-headed fellow named Sark, was awakened by somebody throwing pebbles at his window. I may mention that the house is set back from the street, with gardens around it, and a high wall. Well, Sark looked out the window (it was still pitch dark) and heard Ted calling to him to come down and open the
