Luke had the grace to blush.
“Well,” he said. “So many murders! Rather hard to do a lot of murders and get away with it, eh?”
Miss Pinkerton shook her head.
She said earnestly:
“No, no, my dear boy, that’s where you’re wrong. It’s very easy to kill—so long as no one suspects you. And you see, the person in question is just the last person anyone would suspect!”
“Well, anyway, good luck,” said Luke.
Miss Pinkerton was swallowed up in the crowd. He himself went off in search of his luggage, thinking as he did so:
“Just a little bit batty? No, I don’t think so. A vivid imagination, that’s all. Hope they let her down lightly. Rather an old dear.”
Two
OBITUARY NOTICE
I
Jimmy Lorrimer was one of Luke’s oldest friends. As a matter of course, Luke stayed with Jimmy as soon as he got to London. It was with Jimmy that he sallied forth on the evening of his arrival in search of amusement. It was Jimmy’s coffee that he drank with an aching head the morning after, and it was Jimmy’s voice that went unanswered while he read twice over a small insignificant paragraph in the morning paper.
“Sorry, Jimmy,” he said, coming to himself with a start.
“What were you absorbed in—the political situation?”
Luke grinned.
“No fear. No, it’s rather queer—old pussy I travelled up with in the train yesterday got run over.”
“Probably trusted to a Belisha Beacon,” said Jimmy. “How do you know it’s her?”
“Of course, it mayn’t be. But it’s the same name—Pinkerton—she was knocked down and killed by a car as she was crossing Whitehall. The car didn’t stop.”
“Nasty business,” said Jimmy.
“Yes, poor old bean. I’m sorry. She reminded me of my Aunt Mildred.”
“Whoever was driving that car will be for it. Bring it in manslaughter as likely as not. I tell you, I’m scared stiff of driving a car nowadays.”
“What have you got at present in the way of a car?”
“Ford V 8. I tell you, my boy—”
The conversation became severely mechanical.
Jimmy broke it off to ask:
“What the devil are you humming?”
Luke was humming to himself:
“Fiddle de dee, fiddle de dee, the fly has married the bumblebee.”
He apologized.
“Nursery rhyme remembered from my childhood. Can’t think what put it into my head.”
II
It was over a week later that Luke, carelessly scanning the front page of The Times, gave a sudden startled exclamation.
“Well, I’m damned!”
Jimmy Lorrimer looked up.
“What’s the matter?”
Luke did not answer. He was staring at a name in the printed column.
Jimmy repeated his question.
Luke raised his head and looked at his friend. His expression was so peculiar that Jimmy was quite taken aback.
“What’s up, Luke? You look as though you’d seen a ghost.”
For a minute or two the other did not reply. He dropped the paper, strode to the window and back again. Jimmy watched him with increasing surprise.
Luke dropped into a chair and leaned forward.
“Jimmy, old son, do you remember my mentioning an old lady I travelled up to town with—the day I arrived in England?”
“The one you said reminded you of your Aunt Mildred? And then she got run over by a car?”
“That’s the one. Listen, Jimmy. The old girl came out with a long rigmarole of how she was going up to Scotland Yard to tell them about a lot of murders. There was a murderer loose in her village—that’s what it amounted to, and he’s been doing some pretty rapid execution.”
“You didn’t tell me she was batty,” said Jimmy.
“I didn’t think she was.”
“Oh, come now, old boy, wholesale murder—”
Luke said impatiently:
“I didn’t think she was off her head. I thought she was just letting her imagination run away with her like old ladies sometimes do.”
“Well, yes, I suppose that might have been it. But she was probably a bit touched as well, I should think.”
“Never mind what you think, Jimmy. At the moment, I’m telling you, see?”
“Oh, quite—quite—get on with it.”
“She was quite circumstantial, mentioned one or two victims by name and then explained that what had really rattled her was the fact that she knew who the next victim was going to be.”
“Yes?” said Jimmy encouragingly.
“Sometimes a name sticks in your head for some silly reason or other. This name stuck in mine because I linked it up with a silly nursery rhyme they used to sing to me when I was a kid. Fiddle de dee, fiddle de dee, the fly has married the bumblebee.”
“Very intellectual, I’m sure, but what’s the point?”
“The point, my good ass, is that the man’s name was Humbleby—Dr. Humbleby. My old lady said Dr. Humbleby would be the next, and she was distressed because he was ‘such a good man.’ The name stuck in my head because of the aforementioned rhyme.”
“Well?” said Jimmy.
“Well, look at this.”
Luke passed over the paper, his finger pressed against an entry in the column of deaths.
HUMBLEBY.—On June 13, suddenly, at his residence, Sandgate, Wychwood-under-Ashe, JOHN EDWARD HUMBLEBY, MD, beloved husband of JESSIE ROSE HUMBLEBY. Funeral Friday. No flowers, by request.
“You see, Jimmy? That’s the name and the place and he’s a doctor. What do you make of it?”
Jimmy took a moment or two to answer. His voice was serious when he said at last rather uncertainly:
“I suppose it’s just a damned odd coincidence.”
“Is it, Jimmy? Is it? Is that all it is?”
Luke began to walk up and down again.
“What else could it be?” asked Jimmy.
Luke wheeled round suddenly.
“Suppose that every word that dear bleating old sheep said was true! Suppose that that fantastic story was just the plain literal truth!”
“Oh, come now, old boy! That would be a bit thick! Things like that don’t happen.”
“What about the Abercrombie case? Wasn’t he supposed to have done away with a goodish few?”
“More than ever came out,” said Jimmy. “A pal of mine had a cousin who was the local coroner. I heard a bit through him. They got Abercrombie for feeding the local vet with arsenic, then they dug up his wife and she was full of it, and it’s pretty certain his brother-in-law went the same way—and that wasn’t all, by a long chalk. This pal of mine told me the unofficial view was that Abercrombie had done away with at least fifteen people in his time. Fifteen!”
“Exactly. So these things do happen!”
“Yes, but they don’t happen often.”
“How do you know? They may happen a good deal oftener than you suppose.”
“There speaks the police wallah! Can’t you forget you’re a policeman now that you’ve retired into private life?”
“Once a policeman, always a policeman, I suppose,” said Luke. “Now look here, Jimmy, supposing that before Abercrombie had got so foolhardy as fairly to push his murders under the nose of the police, some dear loquacious old spinster had just simply guessed what he was up to and had trotted off to tell someone in authority all about it. Do you suppose they’d have listened to her?”
Jimmy grinned.
“No fear!”
“Exactly. They’d have said she’d got bats in the belfry. Just as you said! Or they’d have said, ‘Too much imagination. Not enough to do.’ As I said! And both of us, Jimmy, would have been wrong.”
Lorrimer took a moment or two to consider, then he said:
“What’s the position exactly—as it appears to you?”
Luke said slowly:
“The case stands like this. I was told a story—an improbable, but not an impossible story. One piece of evidence, the death of Dr. Humbleby, supports that story. And there’s one other significant fact. Miss Pinkerton was going to Scotland Yard with this improbable story of hers. But she didn’t get there. She was run over and killed by a car that didn’t stop.”
Jimmy objected.
“You don’t know that she didn’t get there. She might have been killed after her visit, not before.”
“She might have been, yes—but I don’t think she was.”
“That’s pure supposition. It boils down to this—you believe in this—this melodrama.”
Luke shook his head sharply.
“No, I don’t say that. All I say is, there’s a case for investigation.”
“In other words, you are going to Scotland Yard.”
“No, it hasn’t come to that yet—not nearly. As you say, this man Humbleby’s death may be merely a coincidence.”
“Then what, may I ask, is the idea?”
“The idea is to go down to this place and look into the matter.”
“So that’s the idea, is it?”
“Don’t you agree that that is the only sensible way to set about it?”
Jimmy stared at him, then he said:
“Are you serious about this business, Luke?”
“Absolutely.”
“Suppose the whole thing’s a mare’s nest?”
“That would be the best thing that could happen.”
“Yes, of course…” Jimmy frowned. “But you don’t think it is, do you?”
“My dear fellow, I’m keeping an open mind.” Jimmy was silent for a minute or two. Then he said:
“Got any plan? I mean, you’ll have to have some reason for suddenly arriving in this place.”
“Yes, I suppose I shall.”
“No ‘suppose’ about it. Do you realize what a small English country town is like? Anyone new sticks out a mile!”
“I shall have to adopt a disguise,” said Luke with a sudden grin. “What do you suggest? Artist? Hardly—I can’t draw, let alone paint.”
“You could be a modern artist,” suggested Jimmy. “Then that wouldn’t matter.”
But Luke was intent on the matter in hand.
“An author? Do authors go to strange country inns to write? They might, I suppose. A fisherman, perhaps—but I’ll have to find out if there’s a handy river. An invalid ordered country air? I don’t look the part, and anyway everyone goes to a nursing home nowadays. I might be looking for a house in the neighbourhood. But that’s not very good. Hang it all, Jimmy, there must be some plausible reason for a hearty stranger to descend upon an English village?”
Jimmy said:
“Wait a sec—give me that paper again.”
Taking it, he gave it a cursory glance and announced triumphantly:
“I thought so! Luke, old boy—to put it in a nutshell—I’ll fix you OK. Everything’s as easy as winking!”
Luke wheeled round.
“What?”
Jimmy was continuing with modest pride:
“I thought something struck a chord! Wychwood-under-Ashe. Of course! The very place!”
“Have you, by any chance, a pal who knows the coroner there?”
“Not this time. Better than that, my boy. Nature, as you know, has endowed me plentifully with aunts and cousins—my father having been one of a family of thirteen. Now listen to this: I have a cousin in Wychwood-under-Ashe.”
“Jimmy, you’re a blinking marvel.”
“It is pretty good, isn’t it?” said Jimmy modestly.
“Tell me about him.”
“It’s a her. Her name’s Bridget Conway. For the last two years she’s been secretary to Lord Whitfield.”
“The man who owns those nasty little weekly papers?”
“That’s right. Rather a nasty little man too! Pompous! He was born in Wychwood-under-Ashe, and being the kind of snob who rams his birth and breeding down your throat and glories in being self-made, he has returned to his home village, bought up the only big house in the neighbourhood (it belonged to Bridget’s family originally, by the way) and is busy making the place into a ‘model estate.’”
“And your cousin is his secretary?”
“She was,” said Jimmy darkly. “Now she’s gone one better! She’s engaged to him!”
“Oh,” said Luke, rather taken aback.
“He’s a catch, of course,” said Jimmy. “Rolling in money. Bridget took rather a toss over some fellow—it pretty well knocked the romance out of her. I dare say this will pan out very well. She’ll probably be kind of firm with him and he’ll eat out of her hand.”
“And where do I come in?”
Jimmy replied promptly.
“You go down there to stay—you’d better be another cousin. Bridget’s got so many that one more or less won’t matter. I’ll fix that up with her all right. She and I have always been pals. Now for your reason for going there—witchcraft, my boy.”
“Witchcraft?”
“Folklore, local superstitions—all that sort of thing. Wychwood-under-Ashe has got rather a reputation that way. One of the last places where they had a Witches’ Sabbath—witches were still burnt there in the last century—all sorts of traditions. You’re writing a book, see? Correlating the customs of the Mayang Straits and old English folklore—points of resemblance, etc. You know the sort of stuff. Go round with a notebook and interview the oldest inhabitant about local superstitions and customs. They’re quite used to that sort of thing down there, and if you’re staying at Ashe Manor it vouches for you.”
“What about Lord Whitfield?”
“He’ll be all right. He’s quite uneducated and completely credulous—actually believes things he reads in his own papers. Anyway Bridget will fix him. Bridget’s all right. I’ll answer for her.”
Luke drew a deep breath.
“Jimmy, old scout, it looks as though the thing is going to be easy. You’re a wonder. If you can really fix up with your cousin—”
“That will be absolutely OK. Leave it to me.”
“I’m no end grateful to you.”
Jimmy said:
“All I ask is, if you’re hunting down a homicidal murderer, let me be in at the death!”
He added sharply:
“What is it?”
Luke said slowly:
“Just something I remembered my old lady saying to me. I’d said to her that it was a bit thick to do a lot of murders and get away with it, and she answered that I was wrong—that it was very easy to kill…” He stopped, and then said slowly, “I wonder if that’s true, Jimmy? I wonder if it is—”
“What?”
“Easy to kill….”
Three
WITCH WITHOUT BROOMSTICK
I
The sun was shining when Luke came over the hill and down into the little country town of Wychwood-under-Ashe. He had bought a secondhand Standard Swallow, and he stopped for a moment on the brow of the hill and switched off the engine.
The summer day was warm and sunny. Below him was the village, singularly unspoilt by recent developments. It lay innocently and peacefully in the sunlight—mainly composed of a long straggling street that ran along under the overhanging brow of Ashe Ridge.
It seemed singularly remote, strangely untouched. Luke thought, “I’m probably mad. The whole thing’s fantastic.”
Had he really come here solemnly to hunt down a killer—simply on the strength of some garrulous ramblings on the part of an old lady, and a chance obituary notice?
He shook his head.
“Surely these things don’t happen,” he murmured. “Or—do they? Luke, my boy, it’s up to you to find out if you’re the world’s most credulous prize ass, or if your policeman’s nose has led you hot on the scent.”
He switched on the engine, threw in the gear and drove gently down the twisting road and so entered the main street.
Wychwood, a
s has been said, consists mainly of its one principal street. There were shops, small Georgian houses, prim and aristocratic, with whitened steps and polished knockers, there were picturesque cottages with flower gardens. There was an inn, the Bells and Motley, standing a little back from the street. There was a village green and a duck pond, and presiding over them a dignified Georgian house which Luke thought at first must be his destination, Ashe Manor. But on coming nearer he saw that there was a large painted board announcing that it was the Museum and Library. Farther on there was an anachronism, a large white modern building, austere and irrelevant to the cheerful haphazardness of the rest of the place. It was, Luke gathered, a local Institute and Lads’ Club.
It was at this point that he stopped and asked the way to his destination.
He was told that Ashe Manor was about half a mile farther on—he would see the gates on his right.
Luke continued his course. He found the gates easily—they were of new and elaborate wrought iron. He drove in, caught a gleam of red brick through the trees, and turned a corner of the drive to be stupefied by the appalling and incongruous castellated mass that greeted his eyes.
While he was contemplating the nightmare, the sun went in. He became suddenly conscious of the overlying menace of Ashe Ridge. There was a sudden sharp gust of wind, blowing back the leaves of the trees, and at that moment a girl came round the corner of the castellated mansion.
Her black hair was blown up off her head by the sudden gust and Luke was reminded of a picture he had once seen—Nevinson’s “Witch.” The long pale delicate face, the black hair flying up to the stars. He could see this girl on a broomstick flying up to the moon….
She came straight towards him.
“You must be Luke Fitzwilliam. I’m Bridget Conway.”
He took the hand she held out. He could see her now as she was—not in a sudden moment of fantasy. Tall, slender, a long delicate face with slightly hollow cheekbones—ironic black brows—black eyes and hair. She was like a delicate etching, he thought—poignant and beautiful.
He had had an acknowledged picture at the back of his mind during his voyage home to England—a picture of an English girl flushed and sunburnt—stroking a horse’s neck, stooping to weed a herbaceous border, sitting holding out her hands to the blaze of a wood fire. It had been a warm gracious vision….