The Z Murders (22 page)

Chapter XXXVII

The Last Victim

“No, I wouldn't move,” said the man without arms. “My sleeve may appear empty, but it can strike.”

He raised his right sleeve as he spoke, while Richard Temperley struggled against the temporary paralysis produced by this appalling and unexpected apparition. The man did not merely lack arms. He lacked expression. Beneath the wide rim of an old slouch hat glinted eyes that were as vacant and as cruel as those of an octopus.

“I'm sorry I've had to disappoint you,” went on the man without arms, “but Mr. Diggs—I think I heard you describe him by that name as I came up the stairs just now—Mr. Diggs is not fetching the police. He is not in a condition to fetch anything. I have had to give him a little dose—”

“You damned little cur!” cried Temperley, finding his voice at last.

“But it's not such bad stuff, is it?” the man proceeded, turning the expressionless gaze towards Sylvia. “You've tested it, haven't you? It doesn't kill.” The expressionless gaze turned back to Temperley. “Not that I would have minded killing Mr. Diggs. One more or less? What would it matter? But—a man without any arms is at a disadvantage.” The sleeve flapped slightly. “He cannot strike again and again. The number of his blows is limited. And the few I have left—two, to be exact—must not be wasted on insignificant people like Mr. Diggs.”

Temperley's mind raced round and round in a hopeless circle. Madness stood there in the doorway. How did one deal with madness? Before the madness dealt with you? Nothing to appeal to! No spark of ordinary intelligence or sympathy or understanding! All that existed in that miserable, wasted frame, all that signified, was a homicidal lust, that seemed at this moment to be fanned into additional vitality by the outside elements themselves. The rain descended in violent sheets, rapping and squalling against the little window with the view of the troubled lake. The wind howled with venom and shook with laughter, shaking the cottage with it. “Who are you?” Temperley heard himself asking.

He knew the answer, but he had to say something to break up the deadly suspense.

The left sleeve rose in response—the right still remained directed towards them—and brushed off the slouching hat. Above the expressionless eyes was revealed a ragged, zig-zagging scar. It zig-zagged upwards from the top of the nose to the farthest visible extremity of the forehead in the form of a letter Z.

“I see,” muttered Temperley.

“Do you?” came the ironical reply.

“Yes,” said Temperley. “I see that you are the person who killed—”

“A man in an arm-chair—an old woman in a field—a taximan at Boston? Yes, I am that person. You may like to know that I've added since to the list—”

Sylvia's fingers suddenly clutched Temperley's sleeve.

“—as I have had to dispose of my companion, who grew troublesome.”

The fingers relaxed, and became weak.

“He lies dead in the pond out there.”

“God!” exclaimed Temperley. “And you think it wise to tell us of these things—”

“I have already warned you once not to move,” interrupted the man without arms, sharply. “The next time, she'll get a bullet. And you won't hear it. She'll just sink down on that bed and lie still—as the others have done.”

“There must be some way,” raced Temperley's mind. “There must be some way! There must be…”

“Wise to tell you of these things?” said the man without arms. “Why not? You won't be able to repeat them?”

“In that case,” retorted Temperley, “you might tell us a little more.” But his mind was still racing, “There must be some way—there
must
be—!”

“What more?” asked the man without arms.

“Have you been here before to-day?”

“Here?”

“In this cottage?”

“How does one get into a cottage without hands?” inquired the man who lacked them.

“And no one answered the bell, eh?”

“No one.”

“You could have broken a window—”

“As you did?”

“Yes.”

“And given the alarm? Why? There was no hurry.”

“I should have thought there was considerable hurry!” said Temperley.

“Yes, you've thought a lot of things in the last forty-eight hours,” replied the man without arms, “and in a minute you will pay for the thinking. I repeat, there was no hurry. If the particular person I wanted to see was in the cottage, he would remain there—provided I did not give him the alarm. And, if he was not—” He shrugged his shoulders. “So I returned to the car—gave the young lady a little more medicine, so that I could rely on her slumber for a few hours longer—and returned to the town.”

“What did you do that for?” demanded Temperley, while thinking, “If only he steps a little closer, I might spring on him.”

“Just to see whether I could find out anything,” answered the man without arms. “And I did find out something.” He paused. “In an afternoon local paper. It's on the local placards.” And now he did advance a step, and his gaze once more turned on Sylvia.

“An old man has been found, some miles from here, lying by the roadside. A motorist found him and took him to a hospital.” The tone of the speaker's voice changed slightly in quality. Unseen emotion was stirring him, but the voice remained steady and slow. “He never recovered.”

A gasp came from the bed. Temperley longed to give comfort, but not for an instant could he relax his watch of their tormentor.

“What is the matter?” continued the expressionless voice. “I have not said who he was! He has not yet been identified. All that was found on him was a little bag of precious stones.”

“By Jove—two more steps, and I'll have him!” thought Temperley.

“I wonder,” said the man without arms, “whether those stones were his own? Or whether they had been stolen—say, twenty years ago? And I wonder whether he has not yet been identified because, since he took his last residence—in such a cottage as this, eh?—he has lived a very retired life? Yes, and whether the silly old woman who has been looking after him, and who is the only local person who can identify him perhaps, has failed to do so because she has rushed off to London—eh?—for advice from
you
, Miss Wynne?” He took another step forward, and his eyes began to glint.

“That's very possible, isn't it?” he went on, his voice now rising slightly. “Yes, I expect that is what has happened. But let others worry about that! Why should
we
three worry? We three in this room? That old man is dead—unfortunately; I had hoped to be in at the kill—and so we only have to think about ourselves now. And it was because of that I returned here, and waited till you came out of the dope. You see, I knew where you'd go as soon as you found yourself free—and alone. And
I
wanted to go there, too.”

“Why?” asked Temperley, his blood racing fiercely.

“Why?” repeated the man without arms. His tongue appeared for a second, while they moistened dry lips. “I had to be quite sure—quite sure—that the old man
was
my old friend Ledlow. I had to be quite sure it was no mistake, or trick, and that he wasn't still here. I had to save my—two remaining blows, eh?—till I knew.”

He glanced round the room. Temperley suddenly swore at himself for missing the moment. But there was still a considerable space between them.

“Well, now I
do
know,” said the man without arms, “
and I can finish the little letter I have been writing!
”

The sleeve shot out.

“You'll hang for it!” cried Temperley.

“What!” shouted Z. “When I've been dead twenty years already?”

He bent forward. Temperley prepared to spring. But, just before he could do so, the madman leapt away, and was in the doorway again. He threw his head back with insane laughter, as his flapping arm stretched out once more. “The end!” he shrieked, and the wind shrieked with him. “The end! The end!”

Temperley stood before Sylvia. It was all he could do. He hoped vaguely that the first bullet would merely wound him, so that he could remain standing just as he was, shielding the girl behind him. But he wished the girl would keep still. She seemed to be objecting to his scheme, and to be struggling convulsively to take a place beside him…

Why didn't the bullet come? Why didn't the outstretched sleeve discharge its death message? All at once Temperley discovered the reason. The sleeve was no longer pointing towards him—it was pointing upwards into the air. Waving, rather…spasmodically…helplessly…

And the head that had been thrown back in mad laughter was no longer visible. It had disappeared, with its grim brand, out of the line of vision. The shrunken, flattening chest looked as though it had been decapitated.

As he had waited hopelessly for the silent bullet Temperley would have sworn that a minute had passed, but actually he waited merely a second, and when he found himself freed from the violence of his whirling emotions and realised what was happening, he hurled himself forward to assist whatever agency lay behind the madman to render him so impotent.

For a few moments he was in the middle of a wild struggle. He became conscious of fiercely-flapping sleeves whirling inadequately against capable hands. There was a pleasant sense of dark blue in the dim little passage, a colour that stood for officialdom and law and order, that might be delayed but that never ceased its effort. Then, all at once, the flapping sleeves ceased to flap, the galvanic form against which law and order were ranged became limp, and an ominous gap appeared in the wasted chest.

“God Almighty, 'oo done that?” panted a policeman, helping two more to lower the lifeless form.

But he would not have understood if he had been told that it was the last scratch of a crimson pen.

***

Five minutes later, Richard Temperley returned to the bedroom. “All clear below,” he reported, quietly. “And, now, how about you?”

He sat down beside her, and she took his hand.

“I don't know,” she murmured. “I don't seem able to feel anything. Is that a good sign?”

“The best,” he answered, giving her hand a squeeze. “But you felt that?”

“Yes.”

“Then there's hope for the patient! And when the numbness has passed—perhaps we'll be able to save something from the wreck? You and I, Sylvia?”

“Is he dead?”

“Isn't it best? Poor devil! When you've a bruised brain, you're better out of it.”

After a silence, during which he felt her fingers clasped tightly round his own, she asked,

“And—my grandfather? Do you think that's best, too?”

“I don't think it's best, my dear—I know it's best. Like the poor lunatic below, he's free now. And so,” he added, “are you. What are you going to do?”

“I don't know,” she answered. “You see—now, I've no one.”

“I was rather hoping you'd say that,” replied Temperley. “You see, it gives me such a lovely opportunity to correct you. My dear, you've got
me
. That is, if you want me. By the way, twenty thousand years ago I had a sister living in Richmond. She's heard your voice over the telephone, and she's longing to meet you. What about making her house your headquarters for a bit? You know, till you've got over the shock of all this—and can make up your mind about things?”

“But—I believe I've already made up my mind,” she gulped.

“No! Have you?” he exclaimed, happily. “In that case, I've another suggestion to add. After you've stayed at my sister's, what about taking a really long honeymoon in Australia?”

And so life mingled with death, and light threaded its way through the shadows. And so, in this world of strange complexities, it will always be.

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