Unnatural death
watch-chain that glinted in the sun as he ran. Wimsey found himself
running to meet him and calling—explaining at great length. It was too
far off to make himself heard, but he explained, wordily, with emphasis,
pointing, indicating. He was quite breathless when the policeman and he
came together. They were both breathless. They wagged their heads and
gasped. It was ludicrous. He started running again, with the man at his
heels. Presently they were all there, pointing, measuring, taking notes,
grubbing under the gorse-bushes. Wimsey sat down. He was dreadfully
tired.
“Peter,” said Parker’s voice, “come and look at this.”
He got up wearily.
There were the remains of a picnic lunch a little farther down the
hollow. The policeman had a little bag in his hand—he had taken it from
under the body, and was now turning over the trifles it contained. On
the ground, close to the dead girl’s head, was a thick, heavy
spanner—unpleasantly discoloured and with a few fair hairs sticking to
its jaws. But what Parker was calling his attention to was none of
these, but a man’s mauve-grey cap.
“Where did you find that?” asked Wimsey.
“Alf here picked it up at the top of the hollow,” said Parker.
“Tumbled off into the gorse it was,” corroborated the scout, “just up
here, lying upside down just as if it had fallen off somebody’s head.”
“Any footmarks?”
“Not likely. But there’s a place where the bushes are all trodden and
broken. Looks as if there’d been some sort of struggle. What’s become of
the Austin? Hi! don’t touch that spanner, my lad. There may be
finger-prints on it. This looks like an attack by some gang or other.
Any money in that purse? Ten-shilling note, sixpence and a few
coppers—oh! Well, the other woman may have had more on her. She’s very
well off, you know. Held up for ransom, I shouldn’t wonder.” Parker bent
down and very gingerly enfolded the spanner in a silk handkerchief,
carrying it slung by the four corners. “Well, we’d better spread about
and have a look for the car. Better try that belt of trees over there.
Looks a likely spot. And, Hopkins—I think you’d better run back with our
car to Crow’s Beach and let ’em know at the station, and come back with
a photographer. And take this wire and send it to the Chief Commissioner
at Scotland Yard, and find a doctor and bring him along with you. And
you’d better hire another car while you’re about it, in case we don’t
find the Austin—we shall be too many to get away in this one. Take Alf
back with you if you’re not sure of finding the place again. Oh! and
Hopkins, fetch us along something to eat and drink, will you, we may be
at it a long time. Here’s some money—that enough?”
“Yes, thank you, sir.”
The constable went off, taking Alf, who was torn between a desire to
stay and do some more detecting, and the pride and glory of being first
back with the news. Parker gave a few words of praise for his valuable
assistance which filled him with delight, and then turned to the Chief
Constable.
“They obviously went off in this direction. Would you bear away to the
left, sir, and enter the trees from that end, and Peter, will you bear
to the right and work through from the other end, while I go straight up
the middle?”
The Chief Constable, who seemed a good deal shaken by the discovery of
the body, obeyed without a word. Wimsey caught Parker by the arm.
“I say,” he said, “have you looked at the wound? Something funny, isn’t
there? There ought to be more mess, somehow. What do you think?”
“I’m not thinking anything for the moment,” said Parker, a little
grimly. “We’ll wait for the doctor’s report. Come on, Steve! We want to
dig out that car.”
“Let’s have a look at the cap. H’m. Sold by a gentleman, resident in
Stepney. Almost new. Smells strongly of California Poppy—rather a swell
sort of gangsman, apparently. Quite one of the lads of the village.”
“Yes—we ought to be able to trace that. Thank Heaven, they always
overlook something. Well, we’d better get along.”
The search for the car presented no difficulties. Parker stumbled upon
it almost as soon as he got in under the trees. There was a clearing,
with a little rivulet of water running through it, beside which stood
the missing Austin. There were other trees here, mingled with the pines,
and the water made an elbow and spread into a shallow pool, with a kind
of muddy beach.
The hood of the car was up, and Parker approached with an uncomfortable
feeling that there might be something disagreeable inside, but it was
empty. He tried the gears. They were in neutral and the handbrake was
on. On the seat was a handkerchief—a large linen handkerchief, very
grubby and with no initials or laundry-mark. Parker grunted a little
over the criminal’s careless habit of strewing his belongings about. He
came round in front of the car and received immediate further proof of
carelessness. For on the mud there were footmarks—two men’s and a
woman’s, it seemed.
The woman had got out of the car first—he could see where the left heel
had sunk heavily in as she extricated herself from the low seat. Then
the right foot—less heavily—then she had staggered a little and started
to run. But one of the men had been there to catch her. He had stepped
out of the bracken in shoes with new rubbers on them, and there were
some scuffling marks as though he had held her and she had tried to
break away. Finally, the second man, who seemed to possess rather narrow
feet and to wear the long-toed boots affected by town boys of the louder
sort—had come after her from the car—the marks of his feet were clear,
crossing and half-obliterating hers. All three had stood together for a
little. Then the tracks moved away, with those of the woman in the
middle, and led up to where the mark of a Michelin balloon tyre showed
clearly. The tyres of the Austin were ordinary Dunlops—besides, this was
obviously a bigger car. It had apparently stood there for some little
time, for a little pool of engine-oil had dripped from the crank-case.
Then the bigger car had moved off, down a sort of ride that led away
through the trees. Parker followed it for a little distance, but the
tracks soon became lost in a thick carpet of pine-needles. Still, there
was no other road for a car to take. He turned to the Austin to
investigate further. Presently shouts told him that the other two were
converging upon the centre of the wood. He called back and before long
Wimsey and Sir Charles Pillington came crashing towards him through the
bracken which fringed the pines.
“Well,” said Wimsey, “I imagine we may put down this elegant bit of
purple headgear to the gentleman in the slim boots. Bright yellow, I
fancy, with buttons. He must be lamenting his beautiful cap. The woman’s
footprints belong to Mary Whittaker, I take it.”
“I suppose so. I don’t see how they can be the Findlater girl’s. This
woman went or was taken off in the car.”
“They are certainly not Vera Findlater’s—there was no mud on her shoes
when we found her.”
“Oh! you were taking notice, then. I thought you were feeling a bit dead
to the world.”
“So I was, old dear, but I can’t help noticin’ things, though moribund.
Hullo! what’s this?”
He put his hand down behind the cushions of the car and pulled out an
American magazine—that monthly collection of mystery and sensational
fiction published under the name of _The Black Mask_.
“Light reading for the masses,” said Parker.
“Brought by the gentleman in the yellow boots, perhaps,” suggested the
Chief Constable.
“More likely by Miss Findlater,” said Wimsey.
“Hardly a lady’s choice,” said Sir Charles, in a pained tone.
“Oh, I dunno. From all I hear, Miss Whittaker was dead against
sentimentality and roses round the porch, and the other poor girl copied
her in everything. They might have a boyish taste in fiction.”
“Well, it’s not important,” said Parker.
“Wait a bit. Look at this. Somebody’s been making marks on it.”
Wimsey held out the cover for inspection. A thick pencil-mark had been
drawn under the first two words of the title.
“Do you think it’s some sort of message? Perhaps the book was on the
seat, and she contrived to make the marks unnoticed and shove it away
here before they transferred her to the other car.”
“Ingenious,” said Sir Charles, “but what does it mean? The Black. It
makes no sense.”
“Perhaps the long-toed gentleman was a black man,” suggested Parker. “Or
possibly a Hindu or Parsee of sorts.”
“God bless my soul,” said Sir Charles, horrified, “an English girl in
the hands of a black man. How abominable!”
“Well, we’ll hope it isn’t so. Shall we follow the road out or wait for
the doctor to arrive?”
“Better go back to the body, I think,” said Parker. “They’ve got a long
start of us, and half an hour more or less in following them up won’t
make much odds.”
They turned from the translucent cool greenness of the little wood back
on to the downs. The streamlet clacked merrily away over the pebbles,
running out to the southwest on its way to the river and the sea.
“It’s all very well your chattering,” said Wimsey to the water. “Why
can’t you say what you’ve seen?”
CHAPTER XXI
By What Means?
“_Death hath so many doors to let out life._”
Beaumont and Fletcher, _Custom of the Country_
The doctor turned out to be a plumpish, fussy man—and what Wimsey
impatiently called a “Tutster.” He tutted over the mangled head of poor
Vera Findlater as though it was an attack of measles after a party or a
self-provoked fit of the gout.
“Tst, tst, tst. A terrible blow. How did we come by that, I wonder? Tst,
tst. Life extinct? Oh, for several days, you know. Tst, tst—which makes
it so much more painful, of course. Dear me, how shocking for her poor
parents. And her sisters. They are very agreeable girls; you know them,
of course, Sir Charles. Yes. Tst, tst.”
“There is no doubt, I suppose,” said Parker, “that it is Miss
Findlater.”
“None whatever,” said Sir Charles.
“Well, as you can identify her, it may be possible to spare the
relatives the shock of seeing her like this. Just a moment, doctor—the
photographer wants to record the position of the body before you move
anything. Now, Mr.—Andrews?—yes—have you ever done any photographs of
this kind before? No?—well, you mustn’t be upset by it! I know it’s
rather unpleasant. One from here, please, to show the position of the
body—now from the top of the bank—that’s right—now one of the wound
itself—a close-up view, please. Yes. Thank you. Now, doctor, you can
turn her over, please—I’m sorry, Mr. Andrews—I know exactly how you are
feeling, but these things have to be done. Hullo! look how her arms are
all scratched about. Looks as if she’d put up a bit of a fight. The
right wrist and left elbow—as though someone had been trying to hold her
down. We must have a photograph of the marks, Mr. Andrews—they may be
important. I say, doctor, what do you make of this on the face?”
The doctor looked as though he would have preferred not to make so much
as an examination of the face. However, with many tuts he worked himself
up to giving an opinion.
“As far as one can tell, with all these post-mortem changes,” he
ventured, “it looks as though the face had been roughened or burnt about
the nose and lips. Yet there is no appearance of the kind on the bridge
of the nose, neck or forehead. Tst, tst—otherwise I should have put it
down to severe sunburn.”
“How about chloroform burns?” suggested Parker.
“Tst, tst,” said the doctor, annoyed at not having thought of this
himself—“I wish you gentlemen of the police force would not be quite so
abrupt. You want everything decided in too great a hurry. I was about to