The Hangman Page 17

  “All right, my dear!” he screamed. “Don’t be frightened! I’ll stop them! You shan’t go!”

  The rush of air drowned his words and scattered them to the darkness of the night. He would have to be careful now. He mustn’t do anything to injure Joyce.

  Dear little Joyce.

  He frowned, forcing his aching head to think. He must stop the other car—that was what had to be done. Stop the other car . . . stop the other car. The spinning wheels made a rhythmic song of the words, and hammered them over and over again through his brain. Stop the other car . . .

  And then he saw a way of doing it. The road was narrow. He would get ahead and turn his own car until it acted as a barricade.

  He gave a shout of triumph. That would do the trick. He let the car go all out, and it shot ahead. With a twist of the wheel he sent it rushing towards that well of blackness that bordered the road on the right, and then slowing he pulled the wheel hard round, and brought the car to a shuddering halt. With its radiator touching the opposite bank, broadside on, it almost filled the roadway. Certainly there was no room for the other car to pass.

  The driver evidently realized this, for he heard the squeal of his brakes as they were jammed suddenly on. He swung open the door and leapt out and as he advanced to the now stationary car Payton got out. Harold Smedley saw that his face in the reflected light from the headlamps was paper-white and twisted in a snarl.

  “Move that car!” he rasped, and no one would have recognized his voice. “Move it! Do you hear, or I swear I’ll put a bullet through you!”

  Smedley’s eyes narrowed. He saw that the other was holding a snub-nosed automatic.

  “What are you doing with Joyce?” he said huskily. “Where are you taking her——?”

  “Never mind what I’m doing with her?” snapped Payton. “Move that car, as I tell you!”

  With all the cunning of his crazy brain, Smedley pretended to hesitate.

  “I don’t think I can,” he said. “The front wheels are jammed, and——” He broke off, and his jaw dropped as he stared behind Payton. “Look out!” he shouted suddenly. “They’re here!”

  An old trick, as old as time, but Payton, his nerves on edge, fell for it. He swung round, and for the fraction of a second he was off his guard, and in that moment of time Smedley sprang.

  With one hand he gripped Payton’s pistol wrist and flung his other arm round his neck, jerking him backwards. The chief constable struggled hard, but Smedley seemed possessed of abnormal strength. Relentlessly he forced the muzzle of the pistol towards the roadway, and pressed hard on Payton’s trigger finger. With a staccato crackle, the magazine emptied itself harmlessly, the bullets pocking the surface of the road.

  With a snarl of rage, Payton realized that the weapon was useless, and gave up his attempt to turn it against his opponent. Instead he flung his arms round Smedley and tried to trip him by lashing at the back of his heels with his foot. Smedley, his lips drawn back in a grin of rage and pain, counteracted this movement by wrenching one hand free and gripping Payton’s throat. He got the man’s windpipe under his thumb and pressed. Payton jerked his hand back, and tried vainly to get free, but Smedley followed up his advantage by bringing up his other hand.

  He had his man by the throat now, and Payton, with the blood surging through his head and bursting lungs, tried in vain to loosen that deadly grip. He clawed at the other’s wrists and battered at his white face, but all to no avail.

  Backwards they staggered into the glare of the headlights. Their shadows, elongated and distorted, spilled over the road. A red mist was flooding before Payton’s eyes. The noise in his head was like the thunderings of a thousand weirs. His swollen tongue protruded from between his parted lips. His attempts to struggle free were getting less and less—his thrashing arms more feeble. . . .

  Harold Smedley’s breath was whistling from between his clenched teeth, but he made no other sound. Payton with a last supreme effort to break that strangle-hold, twisted his legs round his assailant and flung himself backwards. The two men crashed heavily to the ground towards that black void on the right of the road. Almost to the brink they went, and—stopped.

  The fall had loosened Smedley’s grip, and Payton, drawing in great panting breaths to his tortured lungs, succeeded in tearing the other’s hands from his throat. But his advantage was short-lived. Before he could scramble to his feet, Smedley had thrown himself upon him. The movement carried them both to the edge beyond which there was nothing.

  A hoarse, inhuman cry broke from Payton’s lips as he felt the solid ground drop away. A faint echo of that cry came up from the darkness of the void a moment later, and then—silence!

  Chapter Thirty-One – dawn!

  The police car raced on through the night. It was a good car, but not nearly so powerful as Lowe’s own, and the dramatist was a little dubious of the chance of their overtaking Smedley, even if they ever caught sight of him. He had had a good start, and although at the moment could have gone by no other road than the one they were following, there was a mile ahead, according to Lightfoot, a junction of three roads, any one of which he might have chosen. When they reached this point Shadgold stopped the car and got out. In the light of a powerful electric torch the inspector examined the road surface for any marks of Smedley’s tyres, but the ground was dry and hard, and he soon gave it up as useless.

  “We shall have to choose one of these roads and risk it,” he grunted. “There’s no means of telling which one he took.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right,” agreed Lowe. “But I suggest that you try the middle one. It’s more probable that he would have gone straight on instead of veering either to the right or to the left.”

  “The middle one leads through to Hinton,” said Lightfoot, “the village is about five miles away and there’s an A.A. box just beyond. The man in charge will be able to tell us if the car went by.”

  Shadgold got back into the car and once more it went speeding forward into the darkness. Hinton was scarcely even a village. Its one street sloped sharply to the brow of a hill and down the other side, ending in a hairpin corner. At this point stood the A.A. box. The driver brought the police car to a halt, and the man in the box came out to them. The dramatist described his own car but the A.A. scout shook his head.

  “There hasn’t been a car of any description past here since ten o’clock,” he said.

  Lowe thanked him and turned to Shadgold.

  “We’ve struck the wrong road,” he said.

  The Scotland Yard man nodded.

  “The only thing to do is to go back and try one of the others,” he growled.

  He gave the order to the driver and he backed the car and turned it. They roared back through the sleeping village and along the road to the junction.

  “Which shall it be, sir?” asked the driver as they reached the point from where they had started. “Right-hand road or the left?”

  “Let’s try the left,” said Shadgold.

  The car swung into the left-hand road, and the driver put his foot down hard on the accelerator. The high hedges and the sentinel trees flew by, as with its white sword-like headlamps cutting a luminous path the car tore forward. This road seemed to be interminable: a long straight strip that unrolled over hill and dale. Suddenly the driver jammed on the brakes.

  “What the deuce——” grunted Shadgold, thrown forward in his seat, and then he saw why the man had made such a sudden stop.

  A cyclist patrol was pedalling slowly towards them. The inspector signalled the man, and the policeman stopped, got off his bike and came over to the side of the car. Shadgold put the same questions to him as had been put to the A.A. scout. To his delight the policeman nodded a large and perspiring head. “Yes, sir,” he said, “a car like what you said passed me an hour or so ago up the road, goin’ at a good pace it were, too.”

  “That’s Smedley,” said Lowe, and with a hurried word to the constable they started off again.

  But l
uck was against them that night. They had not gone more than half a mile before with a loud explosion the right-hand back tyre burst. They carried a spare but it took them nearly fifteen minutes to fit it.

  “I suppose we may as well go on,” grumbled Shadgold, as they climbed back again into the car. “God knows where Smedley is by now, though.”

  They went on, rushing through the silent night like a meteor. The country grew more wild and desolate, and presently the road narrowed as they reached the foot of a steep hill.

  “Got to go carefully here, sir,” warned the driver, “there’s a sheer drop at the right-hand side of this road.”

  He decreased his speed slightly, and then suddenly he gave a little grunt.

  “What is it?” asked Shadgold.

  “There’s something ahead, sir,” muttered the man, and peering forward Lowe saw in the glare of the dancing headlights the bulky shapes of two cars.

  “Must be an accident,” growled the inspector excitedly. “Do you think Smedley has run into something?”

  The dramatist made no reply, and the driver of the car increased his speed. Presently he brought it to a halt, with its radiator almost touching the number plate of the first car.

  “Good God!” cried Inspector Lightfoot as he saw the white numbers on the plate. “It’s Mr. Nethcott’s car!”

  “That’s the car that Miss Elliot went away in this afternoon,” said Lowe. “There’s something queer here. That’s my car,” he pointed to the second machine drawn broadside across the road.

  He got down, and followed by Shadgold and Lightfoot advanced towards the stationary cars.

  They saw him pause by the first car, peer in through the side window and then pull open the door. His head and shoulders disappeared into the interior, then he straightened up and looked around.

  “We’ve found Miss Elliot, anyway,” he said. “Help me lift her out.”

  Shadgold, at his elbow, gave him a quick look.

  “She’s not——” he began, and the dramatist shook his head.

  “No, no,” he answered quickly, “but she’s bound and gagged and I think unconscious.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at Lightfoot.

  “Will you get a cushion from the police car, Inspector?” he asked.

  Lightfoot hurried away, and Shadgold and Lowe lifted the limp body of Joyce Elliot out of the car that had so nearly proved to be her coffin.

  “She’s fainted,” said Lowe, as they held her between them. “I should think she’s had a shock.”

  “H’m,” grunted the stout inspector. “I wonder who tied her up like this.”

  Lowe made no reply, but signed for him to lay the girl down on the cushion which Lightfoot had brought. Bending over her, they removed the gag, and with Lowe’s penknife cut the cords at her wrists and ankles. Her teeth were clenched and her eyes were closed, and she was breathing heavily, but was apparently unharmed.

  “If we leave her in the air she’ll recover,” said Lowe, and went over to his own car.

  The front wheels were jammed into the bank at the left of the road, and the bumpers twisted out of shape, but otherwise the car was undamaged. There had obviously been no collision. The position the car occupied had been deliberately brought about. But what had happened to Smedley? Where was he, and the occupant of the other car? Obviously there had been an occupant, since the car was not capable of driving itself.

  The darkness of the night was beginning to fade in the east. A greenish blue glow was spreading across the sky, a herald of the coming dawn, and the air was chill and sharp, laden with that peculiar sweetness which comes with the birth of a new day. It blew softly over the face of the unconscious girl and caused her to stir uneasily. Shadgold noticed the movement and called to Lowe.

  “She’s coming round,” he said.

  The dramatist came over to the improvised couch.

  “Now, perhaps,” he muttered, “we shall learn what really happened here to-night.”

  With a little sigh Joyce opened her eyes. For a moment she lay still, staring up at the velvety vault of the sky, and then as full consciousness flooded her brain an expression of terror crossed her face and she looked wildly about her.

  “Oh!” The little cry, half choked and full of fear, burst from her lips and she struggled up on to one elbow.

  Lowe dropped on one knee beside her and slipped his arm round her shoulders.

  “It’s all right, Miss Elliot,” he said soothingly. “There’s nothing to fear. You’re quite safe.”

  “Who?” she muttered hoarsely. “Where is he?”

  “Where is whom?” asked the dramatist gently.

  “Major Payton,” whispered the girl. “Don’t let him come! Don’t let him do it!”

  “Payton!” The incredulous exclamation burst from Shadgold. “What’s she talking about, Mr. Lowe? What——”

  The dramatist silenced him with a gesture.

  “Why are you afraid of Major Payton?” he said.

  “Don’t you know?” she answered huskily. “Don’t you know that he’s the man who’s been killing all these people?”

  “She’s mad!” exclaimed Shadgold. “Payton! Nonsense!”

  “I’m not mad!” Joyce’s voice was gaining strength. “It’s the truth I’m telling you. I found him out and went to see him. . . . He drugged me and—and——” She shivered. “He was going to kill me, make it look like an accident, only Uncle Harold . . .”

  Gradually they heard the story of the night, and listened with wondering faces. Payton! Payton “The Hangman”! Even Shadgold was forced to admit at the end of the story that he doubted no longer.

  “And they both went over together?” Lowe looked at the black void at the side of the road, now not so black in the grey light that was rapidly spreading over hill and valley.

  Joyce nodded.

  “Yes, I saw them,” she answered, “and I heard them scream, and then I fainted. It was horrible. . . . Horrible!”

  Lowe rose to his feet, and with Shadgold by his side went over to the edge and looked down. It fell sheerly into blackness.

  “We shall have to wait until it’s quite light before we can do anything,” said Shadgold. “I’ll get Lightfoot to go back for help. Good God! Payton! It’s—it’s incredible!”

  “Nothing in the world is incredible,” said Lowe, “except the fact that people should any longer be capable of surprise.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two – odds and ends

  Inspector Lightfoot took Joyce with him to the police station at Hill Green, and having handed her over to the care of the delighted Jim and the equally delighted Francis Nethcott, came back again bringing with him two constables, men of brawn and muscle. The first cold yellow rays of the sun were sending slanting shadows across the scene of the final tragedy when they arrived. They had brought a rope and pulley tackle, and by the aid of these they were able to descend into the valley which formed the last resting place of Wilfred Payton and Harold Smedley. They lay, as they had fallen, locked in each other’s arms, and both men were dead.

  They were driven back to the mortuary in the police car, and by the time this had been done, and arrangements for the inquest settled, the morning was well advanced. It was lunch time before Shadgold and Lowe found time to sit down and take a breather.

  “Well, that’s the end of the business,” grunted the stout inspector as he swallowed half the contents of a tankard of beer in the lounge of the “Hillside Hotel,” “and I for one am jolly glad to see the last of it.”

  “It wasn’t a very savoury affair,” admitted Lowe, “and there’ll be the devil of a scandal. But it ended, I think, in the best way it could have ended. Smedley’s brain was always unbalanced, and it’s pretty evident, in spite of what the doctor’s said, that he was never really cured.”

  “I wonder if we shall ever discover what Payton’s motive was,” remarked Arnold White.

  “That’s what puzzles me,” declared Shadgold, running his stubby fingers through his
bristling hair.

  “Unless it comes out in something you find among his papers,” said Lowe, “I doubt if you’ll ever know.”

  In this he was wrong, for during the night Mrs. Conner had a serious relapse, and in the early hours of the morning, she died. The police, who knew of her connection with Payton, got in touch with Mr. Rushton, the solicitor, and from him learned as much of the truth as they were ever likely to learn.

  “She apparently made a will,” said the solicitor, “which I knew nothing about, leaving her property to Doctor Wallington and Miss Mortimer, and in the event of their deaths before hers, Major Payton. Apparently she changed her mind, for three months ago I drew up a will for her which followed the terms of the first as we know them now, but with this alteration: In the event of Doctor Wallington and Miss Mortimer predeceasing her, the property was to go to the London and Suburban Hospital instead of, as in the previous will, to Major Payton. The only explanation I can give for her changing her mind with regard to Payton is that she once remarked to me that she didn’t feel certain he was a fit person to handle a large sum of money. She was rather an eccentric old lady, you know.”

  It was Shadgold who brought the news to Trevor Lowe, and the dramatist listened gravely.

  “Payton, of course, never knew that the second will existed,” he commented, and his mouth twisted into a smile. “It’s rather ironical when you come to think of it,” he went on. “He took the greatest trouble, committed the dreadful crime of triple murder, all for the sake of enriching the funds of the London and Suburban Hospital to the extent of nearly a hundred thousand pounds!”

  *

  the end

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