When Macdonald left Park Village South it was shortly before seven o’clock—a raw, nasty evening, with a fine drizzle beginning to turn to steady rain intermixed with sleet. He drove back to Scotland Yard, intending to give instructions concerning the removal of Attleton’s papers before he went on to see Mr. Burroughs, and, if possible, to startle a little truth out of him.
When he reached his own department, Detective James came running up the stairs after him.
“Phone call come through from B division, sir. There’s been an explosion in the Belfry and the whole place is burning.”
Macdonald turned a wary eye on him.
“Certain it’s not another of these bogus calls?”
“Quite certain, sir. Fuller rang up himself and I’ve got corroboration from the fire brigade. They can see the place burning all over the district. It began in the roof. Fuller heard a detonation and went inside, and the roof beams were burning like fun.”
“Good thing too,” said Macdonald. “It’s all it’s fit for. I suppose this is the climax of the great idea. Burn the place out and leave the remains for us to ponder over. You wanted to have a look at that roof, too. I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Why, sir? I might have found the plant.”
“And got blown sky-high, or come down and broken your neck on that filthy floor,” said Macdonald severely. “Not my idea of good work. However, the point just now is this. Is it worth while going along there to gape at the spectacle, or do we leave it to the fire brigade? Not much object in interfering until they’ve got the fire under control. You can go if you like, James, and take Jenkins with you. He loves fires. Then the pair of you can stand by, and I’ll come along later. Meantime, I’ll stay on here and write up my report, and you can phone me as soon as you get to the Belfry, and report progress. The Knight Templar’s the nearest phone. If there’s any object in my going to the Belfry, I’ll go, but I don’t want to stand and gape.”
“Very good, sir.”
Fuller departed with enthusiasm. Like Jenkins, he was partial to fires, and from what he had heard this promised to be a good one.
Macdonald lighted his pipe and sat smoking furiously, pondering over his case. A whole lot of possibilities had occurred to him, based on the evidence which he had collected, and he tried to fit in a reason for this latest development.
The murderer, who, for purposes of argument, it was simplest to call Debrette, must have schemed out an exceedingly elaborate programme. There was no actual proof that Attleton had been killed in the Belfry. No one had seen him arrive there with his suitcase, but to Macdonald’s mind it seemed safe to assume that he had gone there alive. It would have been no easy matter to carry a man’s body—or a crate containing it—across that open space of pavement which led to the doorway in the porch. Once inside the building, violence would have been fairly safe. Debrette, therefore, had probably killed Attleton in the building, perhaps by a blow on the head—some method not involving bloodshed, since there had been no bloodstains on floor or walls, and obviously no cleansing had taken place. The body had been then partially dismembered in the bath, and later concealed in the niche. There had been no need to conceal traces of plaster on the floor, for the sculptor’s work which had been carried on there provided an explanation of such remains. Barring that inexplicable matter of the suitcase left in the cellar, there was nothing left to arouse suspicion. Macdonald’s mind worried round over that suitcase. There was no evidence save Grenville’s that the suitcase had been found in the cellar, and Grenville’s evidence must of necessity be considered questionable. It almost looked, argued Macdonald, as though two people had been concerned in the crime, both working against one another. One had endeavoured to conceal every trace of the murder, and further to ensure that the body, if found, should be unrecognisable; the other had endeavoured to leave evidence which could not be missed, and had put the final coup-de-théâtre on proceedings by an explosion and a fire. Even though the niche were not made evident by the fire, it was obvious that demolition would be expedited—and no fire would account for the presence of a mutilated corpse. Then again, what was the object of Debrette giving up the keys of the place, and yet leaving that suitcase where it was? Either retain the keys, or else move the suitcase, argued Macdonald, and pulled out the time-table which Grenville had supplied him with according to instructions.
Wednesday. Breakfast at eight-thirty. Left home at ten. Went to London Mail offices in Fleet Street to look up back files for information re Cycle accidents in Central London. Stayed there till midday. (Corroboration of hours quite uncertain, ran the note of Inspector Jenkins.) Walked to Piccadilly and met Bill Trevor at the Regent Palace. He was late, and didn’t turn up till one o’clock. (No corroboration before one o’clock. Lounge of R.P.H. too full for the staff to remember individuals a week ago.) Went to a lecture at the Scientist’s Association at two-thirty to get material for article on Biology of the Future. (Corroborated.) Returned home at four-thirty. Wrote till seven. Dined at Golden Cock. (No corroboration between four-thirty and six.) Returned home at eight-thirty. Wrote. Went to bed at eleven. (Landlady out from eight to ten. Grenville was in at ten, but may have gone out later, as was his custom.)
On the Thursday, Grenville’s doings were traceable during the day, and in the evening he had been present at Poison by Post at the Duchess of Kent’s, his critique of which play had been one more nail in its hastily-constructed coffin. On Friday, from ten o’clock till four his doings were again uncorroborated, as he had been on the wander collecting material for an article on London’s open-air markets, including the Caledonian Market, the Berwick Market, the Titchfield Market, Petticoat Lane, Artillery Row and the Portman Market. In fact, had he wished to remain obscure, Grenville could not have chosen a better way of occupying his time, since he had indulged in no bargaining, and had simply played an observer’s part. In the evening he had gone to the Belfry, and had been found outside the porch by Constable Bell, his head and shoulders soused in whisky. Thereafter, his doings were quite frankly involved with the Belfry, whose keys he had obtained quite openly from the agents, on payment of a quarter’s rent.
Rockingham’s “dossier” in the case was brief and to the point. His passport (boasting an excellent photograph of his fine, domed head) was stamped with entry into France on Wednesday, March 18th, and departure from that country on Wednesday a week later.
There remained Mr. Thomas Burroughs, whose residence at the cottage named Antibes was still a problematical matter, and the butler, Weller, to whom Macdonald felt less benevolently disposed than he had originally done, and (a very large “and”) Debrette, the latter still at large.
Writing up the salient points of Sybilla Attleton’s statement, Macdonald was interrupted by a call put through to him from below, and picked up the receiver expecting to hear Fuller’s report. It was, however, Rockingham’s voice which spoke. The latter proceeded to inform Macdonald of the letter received by Grenville, and expressed considerable perturbation concerning the discretion of the recipient.
“You never know how a man will react to unusual circumstances,” said Rockingham’s slightly pedantic voice. “I used to think that Grenville had got his head screwed on pretty well, but lately he’s shown a disposition to foolhardiness. I thought I’d let you know about the letter immediately, though if he sends it to you, I should be obliged if you wouldn’t tell him that I informed you. He resents my advising him.”
Macdonald chuckled a little over that, and went on to ask for a description of the paper the letter was written upon and the handwriting thereof—a matter in which Rockingham proved himself a very competent observer, even to having noticed the cancellation time and place—E.C.4., twelve noon.
“You say the landlady took the letter out of the box in your presence?” inquired Macdonald. “Was there any other witness present, in addition to yourself, when Grenville opened it?”
“Yes. Elizabeth Leigh was there. Look here, Inspector, don’t bring her into this if you can help it. I loathe the idea of the kid being put into the witness-box, and all the rest of it.”
“Quite. I’ll do what I can. Thanks very much for phoning me. Are you at home?”
“At the moment. I’m dining at my club—Whelptons—but I shall come straight back here. You can’t dine with me, I suppose?”
Macdonald chuckled again. “Thanks. I’m afraid not. I’ve just heard the Belfry’s on fire, and is blazing away like a beacon.”
“The Belfry—burning? Well, I don’t see the point from the criminal’s point of view, but my own reaction is, Thank God for that. Foul place.”
“Amen,” agreed Macdonald, and hung up the receiver. After a moment, however, he put through another call, this time to Grenville, but only got the satisfaction of hearing a much-tried female voice saying that Mr. Grenville was out, that he always was out at this time of an evening, and she didn’t know when he’d be in.
“Oh, what the blazes is the silly ass up to now?” queried Macdonald as he hung up again. “Having dinner somewhere, or—Just the sort of tom-fool thing he would do.”
He paused just as he was going to relift the receiver and call the City Police. Dowgate Wharf—five minutes along the Embankment to Blackfriars, five more up Queen Victoria Street to Cannon Street Station. No traffic in the city at this time in the evening. Macdonald knew London—not only the West End and the City, but the waterside as well. He knew all about Dowgate Wharf, and for once he gave way to impulse, hastened out of the room and went downstairs and out to his car.
It was a beastly evening; a mixture of snow and sleet was heralding the approach of spring, and cars on the Embankment threw up a greasy mixture of slush, while sodden drifts of sleet blew across the bare plane trees, and blurred the lighting of the County Hall opposite. Macdonald had just got a new car—a Vauxhall—and he made something more than legal speed as he drove eastwards along the Embankment and went across the complicated traffic lanes at Blackfriars, with a signal to the man directing the traffic. No cars about here in the evening, no traffic problem in the city, after seven o’clock: up Queen Victoria Street he sped and slowed down as he approached Cannon Street Station. To the right here. What a wild-goose chase that young fool was leading him—probably nothing in it. “Make certain, and give him what-for afterwards,” said Macdonald, alighting from his car where the roadway narrowed to a lane, running between lofty warehouses.
Alert to hear any footfall, his electric torch showing up the drift of sleet in front of him, Macdonald kept close into the wall, all his wits about him. He could see the river now, and the edge of the ancient wharf; a few seconds later he could see more—the dark shape of a man’s body lying sack-like on the steps, just above the swelling rush of the Thames approaching flood-tide.
Macdonald’s police whistle shrilled out as he bent over the inert form, and lifted it up on to the stones of the wharf.
“Grenville! Fool that he was!” grumbled Macdonald, “coming to such a place, alone, on such a night. Hullo there! Police boat? There have been some fine goings on here this evening. Who is it? Bainton? Come and stand by while I have a look at the fellow. Hullo—had a catch yourself?”
Macdonald stood looking into the body of the police launch, while it was manœuvred alongside and made fast, with a queer feeling of chagrin. Was his case being settled for him by the arch settler, Death?
“Who have you got there?”
“Your quarry, sir, or I’m a Chinaman. Funny you being here. It’s the chap with the white streak in his beard. His body fouled the piles there, just up by Blackfriars. Dead as a stone. His head was right under the piles.”
Bainton pulled back the tarpaulin which covered the body, and Macdonald looked down at a peaceful, drowned face, with the wet beard showing the odd streak of white. Streaky Beaver. Well, his account was settled, whatever it was.
Bainton and Macdonald, both skilled in ambulance work, busied themselves with Grenville’s prostrate body. Just as Macdonald said “This chap’s still alive,” a constable came hurrying down the lane.
“Ambulance—and don’t waste time,” was all that Macdonald vouchsafed to him. The uniformed man turned and went, at the double, after one glance in which he took in the sight of the two bodies, and the police launch bobbing up and down beside that ancient dock.
“Might as well get them both aboard. The doctors will tell us how long that one’s been dead the more accurately if we hand him over quickly,” said Macdonald. “I hope this other chap doesn’t pass out before we get him to hospital. I should like to know the truth about this little performance.”
Waiting for the ambulance, they covered Grenville with the rugs from Macdonald’s car and put a compress round his head. There was no sign of blood, nor of any wound, but Macdonald’s fingers found the bump at the base of his skull.
“Coshed,” said Bainton. “Would this be about it?”
He lifted an object like a heavy, curved piece of garden hose from the cockpit of the police boat. Both police officers knew what it was—rubber loaded with lead, a deadly weapon for a silent killing.
“The loop was still round Debrette’s arm when we fished him out. It was that that hitched on to the piles,” said Bainton. “Looks as though Debrette coshed Grenville, and then lost his balance and fell in. I’ve known many a good swimmer drown in the Thames at full tide, and this Debrette’s a poor, thin little rat. Half starved. No stamina.”
“Might have been,” said Macdonald, “in which case Debrette went to his death through being too much of a practical psychologist. Another instance of the dog it was that died. Here are the ambulance men. St. Joseph’s is about nearest, isn’t it? I’ll carry on with this. You might give my department a call, and tell them I shall be at the hospital. We seem to be having a busy evening. Explosion, fire, assault, and the chief actor fished out of the river too late for him to be helpful. Steady on, there. The chap’s got his skull bashed in. You’re not lifting coals for your living!”
The last remark was to the ambulance man, doing his best to demonstrate a marked degree of skill in the eyes of two “police swells,” but the wharf was treacherous with its coating of sleet, and the ambulance man had slipped a little. He and his mate were trained and experienced men, and he felt hurt in his feelings when Macdonald stood over him with a hand ready to give assistance in case of need. When the stretchers were safely run into their places, Macdonald turned to the two men with a more kindly eye.
“Good enough, but keep her running as smoothly as you can, and don’t risk any jerks. The one man’s alive, but only just, and he matters a lot.”
Sitting beside Grenville in the ambulance, ready to steady him at the least jerk in the smoothly-running vehicle, Macdonald puzzled exceedingly. Bainton’s suggestion seemed a not unreasonable explanation of what might have happened. The wharf was very slippery, and it was quite conceivable that Debrette had lost his footing. He might even have been trying to haul Grenville’s unconscious body into the river, and have fallen in himself—but what was the object of trying to murder Grenville? What was it that the now unconscious journalist had known which made him so dangerous? True, he knew Debrette by sight, but then so did Rockingham and Elizabeth Leigh.
The drowned man who was being carried in the same vehicle as his presumed victim wiped out some of the more fantastic guesses which Macdonald had conjured up. He had even gone so far as to hazard a theory challenging the identity of the corpse found in the Belfry. This involved the supposition of a victim (a cousin of the Brossé line) of similar physique to Bruce Attleton’s, while the latter, having committed a murder, masqueraded in beard and large glasses to impersonate the Debrette of Belfry fame. But a glance at the drowned man’s face routed this theory. The beard was real, the man was real—and the man was dead, still and inscrutable, having taken his secrets with him into the cold flood of London’s river.
Arrived at the hospital, Macdonald saw the house surgeon before Grenville was moved and entreated him earnestly to do his best for his patient.
“All right, we will, since you make such a point of it,” retorted the surgeon. “We generally kill ’em in the lift, to save trouble, especially when we’re over full, as we always are. Never met any one like you cops. You always come along with the suicides saying they’re special cases, and will we be particularly careful.”
Macdonald grinned. “Sorry. I deserved that, but I feel it’ll be the last straw if this chap peters out on me. I suppose the policeman grows to resemble the famous parent at school—their kids are always unusual kids, and want careful handling.”
While one surgeon examined Grenville, Macdonald was allowed to assist a colleague in the examination of the drowned man. That he died by drowning was patent. His lungs were full of water, and his body showed no signs of violence. He was thin, but not to the point of starvation, or even semi-starvation, and he was much cleaner and better cared for than most of the poor waifs who haunt the sleeping places where he had been known. Macdonald looked down at the lean, bearded face, noting its length, the height of the brow and the well-shaped nose. A good type of head, the face already settled into the half-smiling lines of death, waxen, untroubled, inscrutable.
“Found drowned—favourite line with the coroners,” said the surgeon who had examined Debrette. “Particular pet of yours?”
“Well, I wanted him,” said Macdonald. “I suppose he committed a murder, amputated the head and hands of his subject—very carefully—and plastered up the remainder into a wall so that you’d never have believed it’d been done.”
“Capable beggar,” commented the surgeon. “Funny, he looks positively devout now. Found the missing members?”
“No. Probably somewhere in the Thames,” said Macdonald. “This is where I examine his effects, as the lawyers say.”
“Well, I wish you luck. Rather you than me. Thames mud isn’t too savoury.”
The garments taken off the drowned man were not in a bad state of repair, and they had certainly been made by a good tailor, once. The tailor’s tabs were all carefully cut away. The collar was celluloid, and the flannel shirt showed signs of rough laundering. There was a handkerchief marked with a B—fine linen with a hand-worked initial, not at all the sort of thing a poor man might be expected to possess, let alone a down and out. There was five shillings in small change in the trouser pockets, and in an inner pocket of the waistcoat, obviously constructed by an amateur tailor, were four one-pound notes. In another of the waistcoat pockets was a sodden letter, written on the familiar thin grey paper, the blurred superscription on whose envelope was still faintly legible. It was addressed to Mr. Neil Rockingham. Finally, in the same pocket, was a thin and ancient little volume—a devotional book of Belgian origin, containing the canon of the Mass. On its flyleaf was a name written in thin characters in Indian ink, “Marie Antoinette Brossé.”
Macdonald put down the still soaking little book with a sense almost of apprehension. He had the feeling—not uncommon to many people—that came over him in a conversation when some other man mentioned the very topic which it had been on the tip of his tongue to utter. He had guessed aright then. This Louis de Vallon de Brette, with his fine long head and well-shaped hands, had been cousin to Bruce Attleton, resembling him in his spare physique and long featured face. That was what Robert Grenville had noticed, in the flash of time when he had seen Debrette outlined against the light. So does a long shot occasionally hit the mark.
Macdonald took the letter, the book, the handkerchief and the pound notes, and left the clothes to be dried in the drying-room a little before they were taken to Scotland Yard. The letter, though soaked and ready to fall to pieces, opened out in his careful hands, and was spread out on a piece of dry blotting paper. It was a replica, apparently, of that sent to Robert Grenville, save that the rendezvous suggested was Regent’s Park tube station (a frequently lonely spot, as Macdonald knew), and the date for the Sunday following that suggested to Grenville.
“If he was clever in some ways, he was an optimist in others,” said Macdonald to himself.
A few minutes later he was interviewing the surgeon who had examined Robert Grenville.
“He’ll survive—with luck,” commented the doctor, “always assuming that he doesn’t get pneumonia, which he probably will, after lying out in the sleet with a cracked skull, and provided there aren’t any fragments of loose bone lacerating his brain. If he hadn’t had the world’s thickest skull he wouldn’t be alive now.”
“If he hadn’t had the world’s thickest skull in another sense he wouldn’t be where he is now,” said Macdonald. “Now then, looking at this, and speaking as one optimist to another, do you think he could have cracked his own skull by being over-enthusiastic in staging an accident?”
The doctor took the “cosh” with an amused smile. “Want me to try it out on myself? Speaking as one fool to another, which is what you were thinking of saying, I should say not. More in your line than mine, this. Oh, I see. Rubber loops. Quite a nice rebound. Of course, you could hit yourself, if you were a fakir or a contortionist. Try it on yourself, laddie. I’m here to attend to the lesions. You won’t get pneumonia, otherwise, ceteris paribus…Come along, put some spunk into it! Scotland for ever. I’ve met your scrum half, and he wasn’t half so careful of himself as you’re being.”
“Deuce take it,” said Macdonald, “if I really try to hit the back of my own head—so,” and he bent his long head well forward, “I can’t regulate the blow. I don’t want to be laid out just now—but there is a possibility.”
The surgeon had succumbed to mirth. He laughed till he shook.
“Pity there isn’t a movie merchant at hand,” he spluttered. “Nothing Charlie Chaplin ever did is so funny as the sight of a Scots detective trying to hit the base of his own skull with a loaded rubber cosh. Man, ye’re a grand sicht!”