They Walk in Darkness Page 14

  Detective-Inspector Donaldson was not averse to being alone. In fact, he rather welcomed the opportunity it gave him to collect and arrange his ideas. It was, he thought, as he smoked a cigarette and stared at a discoloured patch of damp on the opposite wall, the very devil of a case, or rather two cases, for, up to the present, he could see no possible connection between the murders of the children and the poisoning of those four people in the empty cottage. Since his arrival at Hinton on the previous day he had been pretty busy. He had interviewed Mrs. Sowerby, Mrs. Bossom, Rose Higgs, and Felix Courtland and, with the help of Sergeant Porter, had made a meticulous search of the belongings of the four dead people. He had interviewed the bank manager of the branch at Hinton — there was no bank in Fendyke St. Mary — which carried Fay Bennett’s account, and also the manager of the other bank which carried Robin Mallory’s, André Severac’s, and Laura Courtland’s accounts. All four accounts had been in perfect order — he had been a little surprised at the large amount of money to their various credits — and there was nothing whatever to arouse the smallest suspicion. No irregularities, nothing at all. They had all spent money freely, but they were in a position to do so, and the source of their wealth was quite open and above board. There was nothing there to explain why they had died. Neither had the two solicitors, Mr. Laws and Mr. Taplow, who had arrived to take charge of the affairs of Robin Mallory and Fay Bennett, respectively, and whom he had questioned before the inquest, been able to suggest anything helpful. The lives of the four dead people may have been discreditable from a purely moral point of view; it was evident that they had all led a pretty fast and hectic existence, but otherwise irreproachable. There were no scandals, no hint of possible blackmail, nothing at all to suggest a motive for the murders, or who had committed them. There was the possibility, of course, that something might come to light, later.

  He had asked Scotland Yard to make a rigorous inquiry into the past history of all four, and the result might produce just the kind of information he was seeking. It might. On the other hand it might not. The whole circumstance of the murders was queer. It seemed to him completely insane that four grown people should have dressed themselves up in evening-dress and gone on a freezing cold night, with the ground thick with snow, to a dirty old cottage to eat a meal. There must have been a reason for that, but what was it? His long experience at the Yard had inured him to some of the mad things that the ‘smart set’ would get up to for a new thrill, but this was the craziest he had ever struck. And where did the thrill come in, eating an uncomfortable meal in a cold, dirty, and draughty old cottage? Perhaps there was something more to it than that? Were these four people mixed up in some kind of a conspiracy, and using the cottage as a meeting-place because it was isolated and they would be unlikely to be disturbed? That was all right so far as it went, but what sort of a conspiracy, and why did they have to eat there? Why go to all the trouble and inconvenience of transporting food and drink when they could have had a meal in comfort in their own homes before they went? In the case of Laura Courtland she had had a meal. She’d had dinner at Wymondham Lodge with that fellow Chard and his wife . . . Nice looking girl, she was, with a good figure that was neither too thin nor too fat, but curved in the right places. And her hair was lovely. A real, deep chestnut . . .

  His wife had hair that was something of the same colour, going a bit grey now, though, here and there . . . It was the colour of her hair that had first attracted him . . . A good few years ago that was . . . Young Alice had got it too, and a figure to go with it . . . There’d be a lot of heart throbs when she got a bit older . . . Donaldson gave himself a mental shake. This kind of thinking wasn’t getting him anywhere. No good letting his mind drift away on his family . . . There was plenty to do before he’d see them again. Now where had he got to? Oh, yes, this fellow Chard . . . Well, now, what about him? The evidence of those footprints in the snow was damned queer, say what you would. He and his wife were the only people who could have come and gone from that cottage, unless somebody had performed a miracle . . . And they had admitted being there the day before they had made the discovery . . . Their footprints were all over the place . . . And there were no others, except those that had been accounted for . . . Come to think of it, too, that excuse for their first visit to the cottage was a bit thin, now wasn’t it? There was nothing to prove that the car had broken down. It was quite possible that it had been put out of order deliberately, just to make the story ring true . . . Would anybody have stopped for a cup of tea? It must have been pretty obvious that the place was empty . . .

  Taking it all round there seemed to be a fairly good reason for suspecting Chard and his wife of being mixed up with the deaths of these people, but why . . .? Yes . . . Why? That was the fly in the ointment — a whole bunch of flies in fact . . . Inspector Donaldson crushed out the stub of his cigarette and thoughtfully rubbed his nose. If only some sort of a connection could be established between the Chards and those four people . . . that’d help things a lot. Something that’d supply even the trace of a motive . . . As things were he hadn’t the ghost of a case against them, but, if they hadn’t had anything to do with it, how the devil had someone locked that door and left the cottage with the key without leaving any tracks in the snow? It was a complete and utter impossibility . . . Hello, just a minute, though. There was no proof other than Chard’s word that the door had been locked and that the key was missing . . . Supposing . . . but that only led back to Chard being implicated in the business. Was it possible that he and his wife were shielding someone . . . That only brought up that ever-recurring question — why?

  Chard affirmed that neither he, nor Mrs. Chard, had ever seen these people until they had found them dead — or, at least, three of them. That might not be the truth, of course, but there was nothing to show that it wasn’t . . . But for that confounded impossibility of the snow-tracks he would never have thought of suspecting Chard. He had to admit that . . . He wasn’t the type of man likely to poison anybody. Poison wasn’t usually a man’s weapon, either. It was mostly women who used poison . . . Now was there something in that . . .? Mustn’t go too fast here, he thought. Supposing Mrs. Chard had been the poisoner. How did that work out? There was the original snag of motive to start with . . . But leaving that for the moment . . .? Her husband would naturally try and cover her up . . . and there was nothing to show that they had made those footprints in the snow together . . . they could have been made on separate occasions.

  Inspector Donaldson lit another cigarette and blew the smoke towards the ceiling, following it with troubled eyes. Yes . . . she could have gone to the cottage by herself. . . . Supposing there had been no visit on the afternoon when the car had broken down; supposing that the breakdown had been genuine, but they had never stopped at the cottage on their walk to Fendyke St. Mary; supposing the first time Mrs. Chard had gone there had been in company with Laura Courtland, Robin Mallory, André Severac, and Fay Bennett . . . She could have slipped out from Wymondham Lodge and joined them somewhere . . . or couldn’t she? Not without her husband knowing, perhaps . . . and that brought him into it again . . . It was a teaser whichever way you tried to twist it, and there wasn’t really anything substantial to go on . . . Maybe he was wrong about the Chards. Maybe they hadn’t had anything to do with it . . . Then how could you explain away the fact that there were no other footprints . . .? You came up against a blank wall either way . . .

  How about approaching the thing from another angle . . .? The reason why those people had all gone to the cottage and eaten that meal. If the reason for that could be discovered it would most likely go a long way towards clearing up all the rest . . . And the poison . . .? How had the murderer come by that? You couldn’t just walk into a chemist’s shop and buy cyanide of potassium like toothpaste . . . It would be very difficult to get hold of, and quite a large quantity had been used. There was a possibility there . . . The poison and the reason for that queer meal . . . If he went to work along those line
s it might uncover the whole thing . . . Better leave the Chards to stew for the time being and, anyway, he had nothing on them really. Only those confounded footprints . . . Well, so much for that. Now what about the other business? All those children who had been killed so brutally . . . That was nasty, that was . . . A great deal more beastly and horrible than the poisoning. So far as he could make out the four people who had died in Witch’s House wouldn’t be much loss. Rather a degenerate and decadent crew from all accounts . . .

  Of course that didn’t excuse murder, but somehow he felt more strongly about those poor bloody kids . . . That seemed to be just wanton slaughter — some perverted brute with a kink — and that was going to make it all the more difficult . . . They’d properly landed him with a packet this time, and no mistake . . . Odds had had eighteen months of it and hadn’t got very far, and he knew the district, and the people, like the back of his hand . . .

  Well, he could only do his best and he’d need to, too, if he was going to make anything of it . . . The Chief Constable was about as much use as a sick headache, and likely to give you one if you had much of him, but Odds was willing to be helpful . . . No resentment at the Yard sticking its nose in, like there was with so many of these local chaps . . . Jolly glad to shelve some of the responsibility, probably, and he didn’t blame him . . .

  Inspector Donaldson sighed, yawned, and shifted a little on his hard chair. His cogitations hadn’t got him very far, he thought ruefully. He was settling down for a further session when the telephone bell rang and the voice of Superintendent Odds informed him over the wire, in a harsh, distorted whisper, that Laura Courtland’s car had been found, abandoned, in the middle of a thick clump of reeds on the edge of a lonely part of Hinton Broad . . .

  Chapter Four

  Peter suggested, after lunch, that they should take advantage of the Reverend Amos Benskill’s invitation and pay a visit to the vicarage, a suggestion which Ann received with only partial enthusiasm.

  ‘Must we?’ she said, a little dubiously. ‘We’re going to the Sherwoods this evening and, I think, I’d rather stay here and read . . .’

  ‘All right, darling, if you’d prefer it,’ said Peter. ‘I’ll go by myself . . .’

  ‘Why are you so keen?’ she asked.

  ‘Information,’ he answered, promptly. ‘I want to learn all I can about this place, and its people, and Benskill struck me that he’d be a regular old gossip once he got started . . .’

  Ann sighed and looked regretfully at the deep-cushioned settee beside the fire on which she had contemplated spending the afternoon.

  ‘In that case,’ she said. ‘I suppose I’d better come . . .’

  ‘There’s no need unless you really want to,’ began Peter.

  ‘I’m not going to miss anything,’ she declared. ‘I’ll just go upstairs and change my dress and powder my nose and then I’ll be ready . . .’

  They reached the vicarage just before half-past three and were admitted by a grey-haired woman whose face was so wrinkled that it looked like the map of some strange country. The Reverend Amos Benskill was sitting before the fire in his study, a huge, untidy room full of books, and he rose to greet them with obvious pleasure.

  ‘Really this is most kind of you both,’ he said. ‘Most kind. A pleasure all the more delightful because it is unexpected. Do sit down, Mrs. Chard, you will find that chair most comfortable. It may not look it, but I assure you that it is. You will stay and have some tea, of course? Mrs. Dilly, my housekeeper, makes the most delicious scones . . .’

  ‘That sounds very tempting,’ said Ann, sinking into a shabby leather chair that was all the vicar had said about it.

  ‘With cream and home-made strawberry jam,’ said Mr. Benskill, with all the delighted anticipation of a small boy.

  ‘Quite irresistible,’ remarked Peter. ‘How is your cold, vicar? Better, I hope?’

  ‘A little — a little, I’m glad to say,’ replied the old man. ‘I hear, though, that your aunt has — er — succumbed to the prevalent malady . . .’

  ‘I’m afraid she’s got it rather badly,’ said Ann. ‘Doctor Culpepper insists that she stays in bed for a few days . . .’

  ‘Dear me, I’m very sorry — very sorry indeed,’ said Mr. Benskill. ‘I sincerely trust that she will soon be better. A cold is a most unpleasant thing. I am usually fairly immune from the wretched things, I’m happy to say. A cigarette, Mrs. Chard?’ He brought over a carved wooden box from a littered writing-table and held it out to her.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Ann, taking a cigarette. ‘You don’t disapprove of women smoking, then?’

  ‘Bless my soul, why should I?’ exclaimed the vicar, offering the box to Peter. ‘A harmless pleasure. I smoke like a chimney myself.’ He put down the box and striking a match held it to her cigarette and then to Peter’s. ‘I remember the time when it was considered a terrible thing,’ he said, with a chuckle, throwing the used match into the fire, ‘but, happily, we have outgrown such nonsense.’

  ‘There’s quite a lot we haven’t outgrown,’ said Peter. ‘One thing in particular that I very much doubt if we ever shall.’

  ‘To what do you refer?’ inquired Mr. Benskill. He sat down and produced from the pocket of his shabby jacket a battered pipe and a leather pouch.

  ‘Violence,’ replied Peter, quickly. ‘Violence in all its many forms. War, murder . . .’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ The vicar nodded and began to fill his pipe industriously. ‘I agree. Civilization has still a long way to go, I fear . . .’

  ‘Civilization hasn’t started until you eradicate violence as a means of settling disputes, both between nations and individuals,’ said Peter. ‘Human nature, when you scratch the surface, hasn’t changed much for all its boasted progress . . .’

  ‘Oh, come, come,’ said Mr. Benskill, in mild remonstrance. ‘Surely that is a rather sweeping statement? We have advanced from the days of savagery . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ retorted Peter, ‘instead of flint-headed arrows and stone hammers we use bullets, bombs, shells, and guns. We have advanced considerably in the science of wholesale slaughter. Personally I don’t call that an advance . . .’

  ‘Nature is red in tooth and claw,’ said Mr. Benskill, lighting his pipe.

  ‘In the raw,’ said Peter. ‘But surely human nature should have got beyond the raw state by now? What is the use of education if it can’t achieve that?’

  ‘It could,’ broke in Ann, ‘if it was the right kind of education.’

  ‘What would you call the right kind, Mrs. Chard?’ inquired the vicar, interestedly.

  ‘A kind that goes further than teaching the multiplication table,’ she replied quickly; ‘that goes deeper than history, and geography, and all the usual curriculum. A form of education that would teach an appreciation of beauty . . .’

  ‘You can’t teach that,’ said Peter, shaking his head. ‘An appreciation of beauty is an instinct . . .’

  ‘I think it could be taught,’ declared Ann. ‘If the right method was found . . .’

  ‘And if it could be taught to the multitude,’ said the Reverend Amos Benskill, ‘do you think that an appreciation of beauty would eradicate violence from the world?’

  ‘I think it would go a very long way towards it,’ said Peter.

  ‘Doesn’t it rather depend on what you mean by the word ‘beauty’?’ said the vicar, with a twinkle in his eyes. ‘The appreciation of a beautiful woman, for instance, has often led to a great deal of violence . . .’

  ‘Not the appreciation,’ said Peter. ‘The desire for, yes . . . Violence cannot exist where there is a true and fundamental love of beauty in the abstract . . .’

  ‘To a great extent you are right,’ conceded Mr. Benskill, cautiously, ‘but I cannot entirely agree with your premise. I do, however, agree that this fundamental love of beauty cannot be taught . . .’

  ‘Why can’t it?’ demanded Ann. ‘I’ll admit that it would require a revolutionary revision of the existing methods of
education, and that it would probably take three or four generations before the full effect could be achieved, but would that matter if it was eventually successful?’

  ‘But I don’t believe that it would be successful,’ argued Peter. ‘The vast majority of people haven’t the slightest sense of the beautiful in them, and it cannot be inculcated. It either exists, or it doesn’t. For instance, take a hundred people from a slum in the East End and transport them to clean and lovely surroundings and watch the result. In ninety-nine cases they will instantly, and energetically, proceed to try and reproduce the squalor and ugliness of the slum they came from . . .’

  ‘Simply because they’ve never been taught to appreciate anything better,’ retorted Ann.

  ‘No, simply because that is their nature,’ said Peter.

  ‘You believe that heredity is more powerful than environment?’ remarked the vicar.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ asserted Peter.

  ‘I think I’m inclined to agree with you,’ murmured the Reverend Amos Benskill. ‘Except, of course, in one or two exceptional instances. While we are on the subject of violence, it was you and your wife who made that appalling discovery at Witch’s House, was it not?’

  Peter nodded. Whether the vicar had deliberately introduced the subject in order to avoid further argument he was uncertain, but he was quite content that the conversation should turn in that direction.