The Z Murders (12 page)

Chapter XVII

What Happened at Midnight

If one man's meat is another man's poison, one person's murder may be another person's income. Thus tragedy and happiness interweave, forming life's queer pattern. Fall over a cliff to-morrow, and somebody will benefit from your fall—a press photographer, a gossip-monger, a little boy who had previously been rather bored with existence, or an aunt in India.

It has already been shown how the murder of John Amble brought pennies, and at least one sixpence, to a small newsvendor in London. He was merely one of hundreds of newsvendors who reaped a similar harvest. Now, in Bristol, the murder of an unknown woman was bringing unexpected affluence to taxi-drivers. They had taken journalists to Charlton, officials to Charlton, sight-seers to Charlton, and others unclassified. They had driven one wicked old man who, shedding false tears, had hoped to identify the dead woman as his wife; and they had driven his wife after him, to bring him home again. Charlton, a peaceful rural village, preferring sign-posts to petrol pumps, and inhabited mainly by hens, sheep, cattle, a white pony and an enormous pig, had become a temporary parking-ground, while its quiet greens buzzed beneath the louder buzzing of aeroplanes. There was buzzing, also, in the Carpenter's Arms, where glasses were busy and had to be re-washed an unusual number of times.

And all because, earlier in the day, a woman had walked across a gently-sloping field, and had suddenly dropped down dead.

If the woman had realised how she was going to change the quiet scene on which her eyes rested as she crossed the field, her last moment would have been illuminated by a startling vision; but, happily, such visions are spared us. We pass, merely guessing, from second to second, and only know for certain the second that embraces us.

Among the taximen who were affected by this woman's death, two stand out prominently. Each ran up a record fare, and of one we shall speak later. The other was Ted Diggs, of whom we must speak now.

It was Diggs who had driven the hopeful old man's wife after him, and who had congratulated himself subsequently on his own bachelorhood. He had also driven the father of Flying-Officer Turndike, of the Royal Air Force, to Charlton—the aviator who had seen the woman fall dead—and had been the first to learn that the officer had shown his interest in aviation at the age of three by trying to fly into a garden from a roof. Turndike's father had increased the fare by going from Charlton to Filton, where the aerodrome was, and finally back to Bristol station, very late, to catch the last night train to London. The 11.15. The train of despair, that pitched you into Paddington at twenty minutes to three in the morning.

But that was Turndike Senior's affair. Ted Diggs's own affair, after having deposited Turndike Senior at his platform and discussed the theory of Jack the Ripper's ghost with an imaginative porter, was to seek an earlier bed and to enjoy a well-earned rest. But the best-laid schemes of mice and taximen gang aft agley, and as Diggs turned out of the station yard and began wending his way homewards, he found himself unexpectedly hailed by a young man who stepped out of a narrow side-street.

“Are you engaged?” asked the young man.

“What—at this time o' night?” replied Diggs. “Yes—to a bed!”

“We want to go to Charlton,” said the young man, “and it'll be worth a couple of pounds to you. Think you could postpone that bed?”

Charlton again! And a couple of pounds! And “we”! Where was the other?

Diggs strained his eyes, and found the other standing a yard or two off. A girl! H'm—did that make any difference?

“It's rather urgent,” pressed the young man, in the tone of one who was anxious to make his point agreeably, but who held insistence in reserve.

“Ay, and it's also rather late,” answered Diggs.

And he was also rather tired. But—a girl? Could you expect a girl to walk six or seven miles at night?
She
might be rather tired, too. And he hadn't got a nagging wife to go back to.

Diggs was not a saint. He was, however, just one point above what a sceptical world expected of him, and perhaps something in the attitude of the girl reached him through the darkness. In any case, and whatever the reason, he suddenly decided that he would take on the job, and he told his passengers to hop in. And thus began the most amazing trip of his existence. A trip less amazing, however, than that of the other Bristol taximan who, before cock-crow, ran up a record fare.

“What part of Charlton?” inquired Diggs, as the passengers got into the cab. “
You
ain't goin' sight-seeing at midnight, are you?”

Apparently the young man was not quite sure of the part. He glanced inquiringly at the girl. The girl hesitated, then murmured something.

“The Carpenter's Arms,” said the young man; and added, after the girl had murmured something else, “Only stop just before we reach Charlton, will you?”

Diggs nodded. Seemed a bit mad. Still, it wasn't his business, and two pounds was two pounds at any hour of the day or night.

“Well, that's all fixed,” said Richard Temperley, as they settled in their seats and the car began to move. “And what do we do when we get to the Carpenter's Arms?”

It was a long while before Sylvia replied to this question. The car slipped through the dark streets, went by a lightless cinema and over a bridge. Beneath the bridge dark water flowed, while on their left rose the slim ghosts of masts. On the morrow the sun would transform the masts into happy substance, and some of them would move over water no longer dark towards the open sea; but now they belonged to a different world, a world of eerie fancies and dark thoughts.…Up a steep hill, where sleeping tram-lines were momentarily awakened by the car's headlights. Up on to a green common…

“Of course—it'll be closed,” said Sylvia.

“Yes, it's a bit latish,” agreed Richard, as though there had been no interim between the question and the answer, “but I suppose there'll be a bell. Do we ring it?”

“No.”

“Then how do we get in? Are you expected?”

She only replied to the first question.

“I—I don't believe we shall go in,” she said.

“Don't—
believe
?” he repeated, trying for her sake to remain matter of fact, and to conceal his bewilderment.

“No.”

“But you're not quite certain?”

“We'll know soon.”

“Right. I'm trying not to worry you, Miss Wynne, but—well, I've got to ask a question or two, haven't I?”

“You're being—wonderful.”

The adjective made the inside of the taxi the chosen spot in all creation. After all, what did the outside of the taxi matter? Richard strove to remain practical through his elation, and also to put the elation in its proper place. Naturally, a girl who was receiving the kind of help he was giving would use glorified adjectives once in a while…they didn't mean anything…

“Here's another question, Miss Wynne,” he said. “You're not sure whether we shall be going inside the Carpenter's Arms—but do you know where you're going to sleep to-night?”

“I'm not even sure of that,” she admitted.

“Got a bag, or anything?”

“No.”

“Just left London as you are, eh?”

“Didn't
you
?”

“Not even a toothbrush!” He smiled. “Aren't we a couple of derelicts?”

She smiled, and he felt that she had moved an inch closer to him. He blessed the inch. But the smile was only momentary.

“Would you find out where we are?” she whispered.

He put his head out of the window.

“Where's this, Bill Jones?” he asked.

“Westbury,” answered the driver. “Jest comin' to it. And my name's Ted Diggs!”

“Thank you, Mr. Diggs,” replied Richard, and brought his head in again.

“Did you hear him?” he inquired. “We're just reaching Westbury, and his name is Diggs.”

This time the humour missed her. As they descended into Westbury she repeated the name under her breath, and suddenly asked: “Then we're about two miles from Charlton, aren't we?”

“Yes,” he answered, and wondered how she knew. He had gained an impression that she was not familiar with the district. Then a possible solution occurred to him. She might have made this journey once before. Between nine and eleven p.m.

They ascended out of Westbury, which stood in a little dip, and wound through a curly, low-hedged lane. Westwards, the dark undulations looked gloomy and desolate. All at once, her fingers tightened on his arm. It was his first intimation that she had laid her fingers there. “Ask him to stop!” she whispered.

Richard gave the instruction, and the car came to a standstill. His companion's mind seemed also to have come to a standstill, and Richard decided that it was time for him to assist it. “Tell me, Miss Wynne,” he said in a low voice. “Is there any slight danger to you if you go to the Carpenter's Arms?”

“I—don't know,” she answered. “I must think for a moment.”

“No, let me do the thinking for you. There's no danger to
me
, anyway, is there?”

“I don't see how there could be.”

“Very well, then. Here's a suggestion. You stay here and wait in the car, while I go on and do—” He paused. “Whatever you would have done yourself. Is that possible?”

“Would you?” she faltered.

“You've no need to ask that,” he said. “Just tell me what it is.”

“It's really—quite simple, if you'd do it,” she whispered, after a pause. “And—no, there wouldn't be any danger. It's—it's just to walk by the Carpenter's Arms—it's a little way round that bend on the right—and then come back and tell me if you meet anybody.”

“That sounds distinctly simple!” he responded, in surprise.

“Only don't go in the hotel, or don't knock, or anything.”

“You want me to avoid attracting any attention?”

“Yes. Go beyond the hotel. Perhaps a hundred yards.”

“And suppose I do meet somebody?”

“Then come back, and tell me what they're like.”

“I see. Come back and report to you what I find, or what I don't find. Right, Miss Wynne. You shall have the report in five minutes. Meanwhile, I demand one thing in return.”

“What is it?”

“That you don't move from this car unless some real danger presents itself.”

“I won't.”

“That's a promise?”

“I won't break it.”

He took her hand, gave it a reassuring squeeze, and stepped out on to the road, closing the door of the car after him. Ted Diggs, waiting patiently on his seat, turned his head.

“You're to stay here for a few minutes,” Richard told him, “and to look after a very valuable lady.”

Diggs grinned, and something in the grin conveyed to Richard that he had read the fellow aright. Diggs, with a responsibility, was the man to be relied on!

And now Richard left the car, and walked away from its comforting headlights into the blackness beyond.

Ahead was a dark, triangular space, with a sign-post sticking up out of the middle of it. The sign-post looked unpleasantly like an uncompleted gallows. Roads forked round the triangle to left and right. He took the right road, and walked quietly around its curve.

The curve straightened. Soon—sooner than he had expected—an unpretentious building grew out of the shadows on his left. This would be the Carpenter's Arms. But nobody was waiting outside the little hotel. Nobody stood in the porch, or lurked beneath its walls.

Having paused to satisfy himself on these points, he turned and stared along the continuation of the lane. Blank again.…No,
was
it a blank this time? Did something stir somewhere, making the hedge appear to move? By Jove! Yes…

“Steady!” thought Richard. “A man can take a stroll through a country lane without felonious intent, can't he?”

In the distance, a church clock chimed faintly midnight.

He hurried forward. The movement in the hedge ceased. Then all at once, it began again, grew, and became definitely human; and Richard found himself staring into the eyes of the countryman.

As he stared, something even more arresting began to take shape in the corner of his eye. The something was lying at the side of the road, under the hedge by which the countryman was standing.

“Looks like accident, lad,” said the countryman, softly.

Richard stooped. Beside the prone body was a small, faintly glistening object. A monocle.

“God!” muttered Richard, and swung round fiercely to the countryman.

But even in that instant, the countryman had disappeared.

Diving to the hedge, Richard looked over. A shadow flitted across a field. He tried to break through the hedge, but it was thick, and by the time he had forced an opening the shadow had gone. Then the figure on the ground reverted to his mind. Yes—the man with the eye-glass must be attended to first! Was he just knocked out? Or—?

Richard swung back to him. His heart missed a beat. The man with the eye-glass had evaporated!

Chapter XVIII

The Next Move

When we are suddenly presented with a baffling problem, we attempt, if there is time, to work it out; if there is no time, however, we do not probe into the why's and the how's and the wherefore's, but confine ourselves merely to dealing with the result.

Many questions rushed through Richard Temperley's mind as he stared at the spot where, a moment or two earlier, the young man with the monocle had lain. Had the man been shamming? If so, did the countryman know he had been shamming? Were he and the countryman acting with each other or against each other? Did they constitute a joint menace, or separate menaces? Like untrappable shadows these bewildering query marks sped through Richard's brain. He did not pause over any of them, however. He merely tried to guess which of the two necessities which now comprised the whole of existence for him was the greater—the necessity of finding the countryman, or the necessity of finding the man with the monocle?

He concentrated for an instant on the man with the monocle, for the simple reason that the man with the monocle, having disappeared last, must be the nearer of the two. He went a few yards along the road, his eyes skinned, his senses alert. Then, finding nothing, his thoughts reverted abruptly to the countryman.

The man with the monocle, apparently, had dropped through the ground, but the countryman was still racing across dark fields. Or had he stopped by now, and was he stealthily watching Richard from some distant cover?

Something told Richard that the countryman had not stopped—that he
was
still running. Why would he still be running? And why should this queer instinct be insisting to Richard that he was still running? There must be a definite reason for both the fact and Richard's knowledge of the fact. Some reason…Some reason…

“Good heavens!” gasped Richard, as the reason came to him sickeningly.

The countryman had not stopped because he had divined that somewhere in the neighbourhood of Richard Temperley would be a girl in whom that countryman was interested. And he had divined right! It was because of this fellow that Sylvia had feared to venture near the Carpenter's Arms! Thus ran Richard's thoughts as he turned and, like one demented, flew back along the road.

He fought nightmare visions as he ran. A vision of an empty road. Of Sylvia gagged and bound. Of the car, with the helpless girl inside, disappearing into the black void as the countryman and the young man with the monocle had disappeared before her. Of a man lying in a ditch, and slowly coming to, and muttering, “I couldn't 'elp it, sir—'e'd 'it me on the 'ead before I could say Bristol Channel.”…

Now he was out of the lane that led to the inn, and, veering leftwards, he was passing the dark triangle with the sign-post. His heart almost stopped beating as he swung round the point just beyond which he had left the car. Would it still be there? In a flash he would know heaven or hell.…“Gone!” he gasped.

But something was moving somewhere. Not frankly, but furtively. Richard saw red, and dived for it.

“Whoa! Let go!” gurgled a familiar voice.

The startled eyes of Ted Diggs stared up at him.

“What's happened?” muttered Richard, unsteadily.

“Ay, but it's my throat you've got 'old of!”

Richard let go, and repeated his question while Diggs swallowed carefully to find out whether he still could.

“Nothin's 'appened,” he answered. “What's this all about?”

“If nothing's happened, where's the car?”

“Eh? Oh! The lady got anxious, sir, and it's down a lane. Seemed as if she thought she'd be safer there.”

“But why aren't you with her?”

“Me?”

“She's not safer
alone
, man! You promised you wouldn't leave her—”

“'Ow can I be in two places at once?” demanded Diggs, injured. “I 'ad to be 'ere to let you know she was there, didn't I? If you'd come 'ere and found nothing, you might have thought she'd been kidnapped!”

“I
did
think she'd been kidnapped,” growled Richard, “and if we don't hurry back at once, she may be.”

“What's that?” blinked Diggs, in astonishment.

“Do you suppose we're doing all this for
fun
?” barked Richard. “Quick, man! Which is the way? We mustn't waste a moment!”

Diggs shook his head uncomprehendingly. It was all rather beyond him. But, obviously, as his male passenger had just pointed out, this queer couple hadn't come out on a joy-ride! Otherwise, there wouldn't be all this jumpiness, and nerviness, and neck-twisting.…

“For the Lord's sake, get a
move
on!” cried Richard.

Diggs turned, and without more ado made for the lane up which he had driven the car. They certainly were a queer couple, no mistake about that. Still, having been enlisted in their service, Diggs was anxious to see the adventure safely through, and of course he didn't want them to come to any harm. Nor his taxi, either! Despite himself, some of the jumpiness and the nerviness was entering into
him
, and he now led Richard hastily to the turning beyond which the taxi ought to be.

Ought to be? Don't be silly! Where the taxi
would
be! And here was the corner, and—yes, there was the car! But, lummy, what was the car up to? It was beginning to move! “Hey, there!” shouted Diggs.

He increased his speed. Somebody, increasing faster, shot past him. It was Richard. The taxi stopped moving. A smudge loomed momentarily, then vanished. By the time Richard reached the car, it no longer bore its phantom driver.

Nor did it contain its passenger, for she had leapt out, and stood in the lane panting, white and startled.

“Quick! Get back!” ordered Richard.

“What's happened—who was it?” whispered the girl.

“Actions first, explanations afterwards,” answered Richard. “In with you!” As she obeyed, Richard's hand dived out, catching Diggs on the wing.

“Oi! What's that for?” choked Diggs.

“You don't want to go after that fellow!”

“Don't I? Trying to steal my car—”

“Well, he's not stolen it, and we're going to move before he attempts any more damage.”

“Ay, but—”

“D'you hear me?”

Diggs shrugged his shoulders. After all, he was only conceding a point he could never have made. There really wouldn't have been any chance at all of catching the taxi-thief.

“Very good, sir. Where are we to move to? Back 'ome?”

Richard considered for an instant. Sylvia, acting more swiftly than Diggs, was already in her seat again. He turned to consult her, then changed his mind and made the decision himself.

“No, drive on for about five miles,” he said, “and don't mind if you twist about a bit. In fact, twist about all you can. Five miles. Then I'll give you fresh orders.”

Five miles! And in the wrong direction! Was there a limit to a taximan's allegiance?

“You know it's after midnight?” observed Diggs, mounting to his seat.

“It doesn't matter if it's after a dozen midnights!” retorted Richard. “Now, then! Step on it!” The car entered another stage of its remarkable journey.

“Please, what's happening?” whispered Sylvia, as the car began to move.

“Dashed if I can tell you more than bits and pieces,” muttered Richard. “But, first, are you all right?”

“Yes.”

“You're sure? Not hurt or anything?”

“Of course not!”

“How did that fellow get into the driver's seat?”

“I don't know!”

“Do you mean—you didn't see him till he was actually there?”

“I hadn't any notion. I was staring along the road. He must have been very quiet, though—”

“Yes, and he must have sneaked round by the other side. Probably peeped in at one window while, as you say, you were staring out of the other. Peeped in—saw that you were there, and that the driver wasn't—and then hopped into the driving-seat.…Yes, but when the thing started to
move
, Miss Wynne?”

“I noticed it then, of course. But it all happened so quickly, and for a moment, you see, I thought it was our own driver, and that he was going to meet you.”

“Yes, I see,” murmured Richard, frowning. “Then you didn't get a proper squint of the fellow who—wasn't our own driver?”

“It was too dark. Anyway, I only saw his back.”

“But you've some idea who it was?”

She hesitated, then shook her head.

“I want a better answer than that, please!” urged Richard, noting the hesitation.

“What do you mean?”

“You
have
some idea who it was!”

“I haven't
any
idea who it was!”

“Well, then, let me put it another way. You've some idea who it
could
have been?”

“Perhaps.”

“I'm simply praying for the moment, Miss Wynne, when you will discard your secretiveness and trust me. Meanwhile, I suppose this means I'm not to know who this—person it
could
have been is?”

“I'm sorry.”

“Sorrow shared. But are you
sure
it wasn't the person you have in your mind?”

She looked a little startled at the question, but replied to it, definitely.

“Quite sure.”

“Is it a rather stocky person, for instance, age about fifty and dressed like a countryman?”

He expected some sort of an exclamation from her, but none came. Her eyebrows rose, and she regarded him with close interest, but there was no indication from her that she had ever heard of such a person as Richard had described.

“That conveys nothing to you, eh?” he asked, thoroughly perplexed. “You're not being chased by a man of that description?”

She shook her head.

“Then I'm absolutely beaten, Miss Wynne,” he told her, “because it was this countryman who tried to kidnap you in this car just now. And the reason we're zigzagging through country lanes instead of going straight back to Bristol is because we're shaking that confounded fellow off our track.”

Every now and then Richard gained an impression that Sylvia Wynne was acting. He had no such impression now. She was looking at him in sheer astonishment. She, too, seemed beaten.

“Please tell me,” she said, at last. “When did you first come across this—countryman? Was he outside the Carpenter's Arms?”

“I found him near the Carpenter's Arms,” responded Richard, “but that wasn't the first time I came across him.”

“When was the first time?”

“In the train.”

“In the—oh! Do you mean the man who was sitting at a table near us?”

“Yes, that's the chap.”

“But—I don't know him!”

“He evidently knows
you
, Miss Wynne.”

“It seems like it. But what happened outside the inn? You haven't told me that yet. We may—have to go back.”

“You think so?” answered Richard, grimly. “Well, now I'll tell
you
something! We're not
going
back! Not, at any rate, until you convince me of the wisdom of such a mad idea.
Convince
me, Miss Wynne.”

“I see. Your—your faith is weakening a bit.”

“That's not fair. You know perfectly well it isn't weakening at all. My faith in your—innocence, that is.”

“But in my wisdom?”

“Ah, that, perhaps!”

“I'm sorry, because my next move—if we don't go back to Charlton—will seem even madder still. But I'm still waiting for your ‘report,' you know,” she reminded him.

“So you are. Well, here it is.…I say, our driver knows how to twist and turn, doesn't he?”

“And so do you, Mr. Temperley! You keep on twisting and turning from telling me what happened to you! If that's because you've made up your mind that I'm not going back to the inn, you may as well know that
my
mind is made up, too, and if I've got to go back, I'm
going
back.”

Her tone was challenging. He postponed the definite encounter and told his story.

At first he told it without full detail. He wanted to save her as much as he could. But she was so quick to perceive when he omitted the details, never failing to take her eyes from his face, and appearing to listen also for each revealing inflection, that he gave way at last, and made his report a full one.

She shivered when he described the incident of the young man with the eye-glass. “Do you know anything about
him
?” asked Richard. “No,” she answered, and again he was convinced of her veracity. She had no knowledge of either the countryman or of the young man with the eye-glass, yet both were obviously implicated in the same mosaic. When he had concluded, she sat in thought, and stared out of the window into the darkness.

“And—that's all?” she murmured.

“That's all,” replied Richard.

“You saw no one else?”

“I've told you everything.”

“Yes, I know you have. Thank you. But—do you think anybody else may have been there without your knowing it?”

“My dear Miss Wynne,” said Richard, with a smile, “what I think is being so constantly confounded that I am beginning to wonder whether my thoughts have any value at all. A hundred things have happened to-day that I wouldn't have thought possible! I certainly don't
think
anybody else was in the lane, but whether that opinion is worth half a farthing is for you to decide.”

“I agree with the opinion,” she responded, “and I was only trying to back up my own.”

As she spoke, the taxi slackened speed.

“Well, where does your opinion lead?” inquired Richard. “Back to Charlton?”