The Hangman Page 8

  “If you will come this way, sir,” he said, “Mr. Nethcott will see you.”

  The dramatist followed him as he led the way to the door, but he was thinking of what he had just overheard. Of what had these people to be careful? That phrase spoken in a low tone combined with the obvious agitation of the servant required an explanation, and seemed capable of only one. In some way the murder of poor “Monkey” George affected these people.

  The butler held open the door and entered the room beyond. It was a pleasant room, large and with just sufficient furniture to make it comfortable without overcrowding it. In front of the fire-place stood a short stoutish man, whose restlessness betrayed his unease. Over by the window that faced the garden was a girl, who turned quickly as the dramatist came in, obviously the owner of the voice that had said so swiftly and warningly: “We shall have to be careful.” The little man before the fire-place bowed in greeting.

  “Good morning,” he said, speaking a trifle jerkily. “Lane tells me you wish to see me about this horrible business in the Square.” His face twitched, he was obviously keyed up to an unnatural pitch, his nerves on edge. That was plain.

  “Yes,” answered the dramatist easily. “I’m very sorry to trouble you, but I am helping the police to make inquiries at every house in the Square in the hope that some of the residents may have seen something.”

  The sigh that came softly from the girl at the window sounded very much like a breath of relief.

  “I’m afraid we can’t help you,” Mr. Nethcott shook his head. “We neither saw nor heard anything.”

  “We went to bed early,” said the girl, “so it was unlikely that we should.”

  Lowe looked at her steadily.

  “I don’t think I mentioned anything about time,” he said, and she bit her lip in vexation.

  “I meant,” she said quickly, “that if—if this thing was done during the night——”

  “Why-should you think that it was done during the night?” broke in Lowe.

  She reddened.

  “I thought it was,” she answered sharply. “I think I heard one of the servants say that it was.”

  “When was the man killed?” asked Mr. Nethcott hastily.

  “During the early hours of the morning?” answered the dramatist, and noted the quick look that passed between the two. “So you neither of you saw anything, a car standing about for instance?”

  “No, we saw nothing,” declared Nethcott.

  “Nor any of your servants?” asked Lowe.

  “You are at liberty to question them if you wish,” said the little man, “but I don’t think they could have seen anything, otherwise they would have mentioned it.”

  “I should like to have a word with them presently,” said the dramatist. “In the meanwhile would you tell me how many keys you have to the centre garden.”

  “Keys?” Mr. Nethcott frowned.

  Lowe nodded.

  “We are trying to find out if any of the residents have lost a key lately,” he explained. “The murderer must have had a key to get into the garden at all, and it will help if all the known keys can be accounted for.”

  “Oh, I see, yes of course,” the little man nodded quickly. “Let me think how many have we?”

  “Three,” put in the girl quietly.

  “Yes, that’s right, Joyce,” Nethcott turned to her in relief. “Three.”

  “Could I see them?” asked Lowe.

  “Certainly.” Mr. Nethcott pressed a bell at the side of the fire-place, and presently the butler answered the summons.

  “Yes, sir,” he said respectfully.

  “This—er—Mr. Lowe wants to see the keys of the centre garden, Lane,” said his master. “Bring them, will you.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lane bowed and withdrew, and there was a rather embarrassing silence.

  The girl had gone back to the window and was looking idly out at the Square. Mr. Nethcott still occupied the centre of the hearthrug, but now he was playing nervously with his lips, pinching them between his forefinger and thumb.

  Presently the butler came back.

  “Here you are, sir,” he said, and at a gesture from the little man handed the keys to Lowe.

  The dramatist looked at them.

  “I thought you said there were three,” he remarked.

  “That’s right,” replied Nethcott.

  “There are only two here,” said Lowe.

  With a smothered exclamation the girl turned quickly from the window, and her face was white.

  “Two?” she said incredulously. “There are three, there must be three.”

  Lowe held out his hand and pointed to the keys with their attached metal labels, bearing the name of the owner and the number of the house.

  “Look for yourself,” he said.

  “They were the only ones on the hook, Miss,” said Lane.

  “But——” began Joyce and stopped. “I’ll see if the other’s in my bag.”

  She left the room hurriedly, and while she was gone Lowe watched the varying expressions on the faces of Mr. Nethcott and the butler. The little man’s jaw had dropped at the discovery that there were only two keys, but he had succeeded in partially recovering himself, and was now striving to look unconcerned. A lamentable effort which would not have deceived a child. Lane was even less successful in hiding his emotions, his lined old face looked positively haggard, and his faded eyes kept on shooting little darting questioning glances from Lowe to his master and back again. Happening to catch the dramatist’s eye during one of these, he flushed a deep red, and then went so white that for a moment Lowe thought he was going to faint. There was some secret shared by the inmates of this house. Their agitation—almost a guilty agitation—seemed to point definitely that these people had knowledge of—what? The identity of “The Hangman”? Perhaps, or at least, if not actual knowledge a very great suspicion.

  The door opened and Lowe, thinking it was the girl coming back, turned. As he did so he heard a little gasp from Lane, and saw that the butler’s face was a grotesque mask of fear. And yet the man who had entered was mild enough. A thin man, younger than Nethcott, but sufficiently like him for Lowe to guess the relationship. A man who looked as if he had not slept properly for weeks, with a pallid face and dark circles under sunken eyes. He stood hesitating on the threshold, his restless gaze travelling from one to the other.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and his voice was very gentle, Lowe mentally described it as hushed. “I had no idea there was anyone with you, Francis.”

  Mr. Nethcott coughed.

  “Er—come in Harold,” he said. “Come in. This is my brother, Mr. Lowe.”

  The newcomer bowed.

  “Mr. Lowe has come,” the little man continued, “to ask a few questions. There has—er—been a regrettable—er—occurrence in the Square, in the garden.”

  “A murder was committed last night,” said Lowe gravely, “and I am trying to find out if anybody in the Square saw anything.”

  “Murder?” Harold Nethcott flinched and drew thin brows down over narrowed eyes. “Another of these—hangings?” He hesitated over the last word and his brother broke in quickly:

  “Yes, I didn’t say anything to you about it, because I know how it upsets you,” he said.

  “It does upset me.” The other’s hand went up to his mouth with a nervous gesture. “I don’t know why it should but it does. It horrifies me, and makes me feel quite ill. Why should it, I wonder?”

  Trevor Lowe was not even listening, his eyes were fixed on that trembling hand, and particularly on the third finger.

  Part of the nail had been torn away!

  Chapter Fourteen – colonel hastings makes up his mind

  Colonel Hastings, the Governor of Widemoore Criminal Lunatic Asylum, read an account of the latest Hill Green tragedy in his evening newspaper. To be exact, he read it three times, and as a result was so abstracted and thoughtful during his dinner that his wife concluded that he must be on the verge of an
illness. After the meal, he went to his office, where his secretary, Thompson, was working, and stopped that industrious man in the midst of a complicated report for the Home Office.

  “There’s been another murder at that Garden City place,” he said abruptly.

  Thompson leaned back in his chair, removed his glasses and wiped them carefully on a silk handkerchief.

  “So I saw in the papers, sir,” he answered.

  The governor lit a cigarette and tossed the match into an ash-tray.

  “Well, what are we going to do about it?” he demanded irritably.

  “We?” The secretary raised his eyebrows inquiringly. “I don’t quite see, sir, what it has got to do with us.”

  The colonel frowned, puffed savagely at his cigarette for a moment, and then hurled it into the fire-place.

  “It’s got everything to do with us,” he exclaimed. “If you want to know I think we’re almost the only people in the world who are aware of the identity of the killer.”

  Thompson replaced his glasses on the bridge of his thin nose with great deliberation.

  “Meaning you think it’s Smedley,” he said.

  Hastings snorted.

  “Think!” he snapped. “I’m sure it’s Smedley. I said when he left here a year ago that we should hear more about him, and I was right. This sudden outbreak of motiveless crimes proves it.”

  The secretary shook his head slowly.

  “That, sir,” he said, “is rather a sweeping statement, if you don’t mind my saying so. You have no proof whatever that these murders were perpetrated by Smedley.”

  “Only my own common sense!” growled the governor. “And that’s good enough for me. Don’t you think it’s Smedley?”

  “I do and I don’t, sir,” replied Thompson. “What I mean is the method of the crimes certainly suggests Smedley; the fact that they are almost certainly the work of an insane man again suggests Smedley. But, and here I’m sure, sir, you will agree with me, they might just as easily have been committed by somebody else.”

  “They might have been committed by the Rajah of Bungho, but they weren’t!” retorted the colonel. “No, Thompson, I am convinced that Smedley is the fellow. These murders are exact counterparts of the ones for which he was arrested twenty-one years ago. How many murderers have hanged their victims before, tell me that?”

  “I can’t recollect any at the moment, sir,” said Thompson.

  “No,” growled Hastings, “and you won’t except Smedley. I’m as sure that he’s the guilty man as if I’d seen him do it. And what’s worrying me, is what I ought to do.”

  “What can you do, sir?” asked the secretary.

  “I can get in touch with the people at the Home Office or Scotland Yard and remind them that Smedley was let out a year ago,” answered the colonel. “That’s what I ought to do, and that’s what I think I shall do.”

  “Supposing,” said Thompson, “that you did that, and that Smedley wasn’t guilty after all. You’d practically be responsible for getting him back here, sir.”

  “That’s what’s bothering me,” admitted the governor. “That tiny little doubt. But, damn it all, man, we can’t—I can’t—stand by and do nothing while people are being killed every day.”

  “Why not, sir?” asked Thompson coolly. “It’s not your job to interfere. The Yard people are aware that Smedley was released a year ago. Or if they haven’t remembered it, it’s up to them to do so. The Home Secretary knows, he signed the orders. If they haven’t connected Smedley with these crimes, I don’t see why you should help them.”

  “Because it’s the duty of every respectable citizen to help the police if he can,” grunted Hastings. “I have certain information, which I feel it’s my duty to divulge. After I’ve done that, then I agree with you that it’s no longer any affair of mine.”

  There was a long pause before the secretary replied, and when he did it was to ask a question.

  “I suppose you haven’t any idea where Smedley is, sir?” he asked. The colonel shook his head.

  “Not the least,” he replied, “but I’m willing to bet that he’s somewhere near this place, Hill Green.”

  Thompson smiled to himself. The “old man.” wasn’t going to give up his theory. He was as obstinate as a mule.

  Hastings helped himself to another cigarette, and began to pace up and down the office, smoking, and after a little while the secretary went back to his work. He had typed four foolscap sheets of the intricate report when his employer stopped him.

  “Get the Yard,” he snapped suddenly, “and see if I can speak to the Assistant Commissioner. I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to tell them what I think and then it’ll be off my conscience.”

  Thompson obediently drew the telephone towards him, asked for Trunks and gave Scotland Yard’s number. There was a slight delay in getting through, and more delay in getting connected with the Assistant Commissioner, but presently he handed the receiver to Hastings.

  “Here you are, sir,” he said, and sighed. He had done his best to prevent the governor from interfering, he could do no more.

  “Hallo!” barked the colonel. “This is the governor of Widemoore Asylum speaking. I have some information to give you relating to the Hill Green murders.” He began to speak rapidly, and the result of his telephone conversation was to cause several people not a little trouble and anxiety, including that well-known dramatist, Mr. Trevor Lowe.

  Chapter Fifteen – the hangman?

  Trevor Lowe found great difficulty in removing his eyes from that jagged and broken nail on the hand of Harold Nethcott. Had he, by sheer accident, found the murderer, the man who called himself “The Hangman”? Was this small, almost frail man responsible for the killing of three people? It was almost incredible, and yet the broken nail could scarcely be a coincidence. Not that Lowe was a disbeliever in coincidence, he had seen too many in the course of his life to be a scoffer, and he knew that they were more common than the average person admits. But this, combined with the air of secrecy which the people of this household possessed, and the missing key, was too incredible a coincidence to be thought of. The dramatist’s lips set a little sternly, but otherwise he gave no outward sign that he had noticed anything unusual.

  “I suppose,” Harold Nethcott went on apologetically, “that I am ultra-sensitive, but really ever since I heard about these crimes I’ve felt queer. A kind of sick apprehension. I can’t explain it.”

  “You never were very strong,” murmured Mr. Nethcott. “Why don’t you go and lie down for a little while, Harold? You don’t look at all well.”

  His brother made a gesture of impatience.

  “I’m quite all right physically,” he replied. “It’s inside my head—this thing that bothers me. I keep trying to remember something and I can’t.”

  His face clouded and he passed his hand across his forehead.

  “It’s as if there were something loose wandering about my brain, and I can’t say what it is. I only know that it’s something unpleasant, and any mention of these murders aggravates it.”

  Lowe watched his troubled eyes sympathetically. The man was strung up, nervous, on the verge of a breakdown, but there was nothing guilty about him. If Harold Nethcott had committed the crimes that had sent Hill Green into a panic, Lowe was willing to stake his reputation that he was not aware of the fact. If he were “The Hangman” then he was suffering from some form of amnesia, and the memory of the murders had been completely erased from his consciousness except for that peculiar feeling of disgust that he had described.

  “You saw nothing last night?” he asked, and Harold Nethcott shook his head.

  “No, I saw nothing,” he replied. “I couldn’t very well have seen anything. I wasn’t here.”

  A sound, a smothered ejaculation of mingled surprise and consternation came from the lips of his brother.

  “You weren’t here?” he echoed. “What do you mean, Harold?”

  The other smiled.

  “I was
out,” he replied simply. “I couldn’t sleep, I haven’t been sleeping well lately, and so I went for a walk.”

  “Good heavens!” exclaimed the little man. “In all that rain?”

  “I put on a mackintosh,” said his brother, “and really it was rather pleasant and refreshing.”

  “What time did you go out?” asked Lowe quietly.

  “That I couldn’t tell you,” admitted the other. “Some time after midnight, I think. I got back shortly before three o’clock.”

  “You must have walked a long way,” remarked the dramatist.

  “I did,” answered Harold Nethcott. “I wanted to see if I could tire myself out.”

  At that moment the door opened and Joyce came back.

  “The key is not in my bag,” she said. “I’ve looked everywhere for it but I can’t find it.”

  The dramatist’s face was grave.

  “Can anyone tell me when they were all last seen together?” he asked.

  No one could tell him. There had been three keys and now there were only two, but where the third had gone no one could say.

  Lowe eventually took his leave. At the corner of the Square he met Shadgold and Inspector Lightfoot.

  “Well,” he greeted. “Have you found anything?”

  The Scotland Yard man grunted and shook his head.

  “Nothing much,” he answered. “Somebody thought they heard a car in the Square a little after four, but they weren’t sure. What about you?”

  Lowe looked at him, and there was a perceptible pause before he replied.

  “I think I’ve found the murderer,” he said quietly.

  Chapter Sixteen – the key

  Inspector Lightfoot’s office at the little police station was a fairly large room, but its holding capacity that afternoon was strained to the utmost. Major Payton, hastily summoned from his lunch, occupied Lightfoot’s chair at the shabby ink-stained desk, and Lowe, Lightfoot, himself and Shadgold were seated in chairs commandeered for that purpose from the charge-room. The whole party were looking grave. Lowe had just finished giving an account of his visit to Nethcott’s house, and following his recital, there was a dead silence broken at last by the chief constable.