The Dead Shall be Raised and The Murder of a Quack Page 6

  “Most unpleasant—a shot in the back. Most cowardly and contemptible, if murder can ever be anything else,” said Mr. Butterworth. “I take it you extracted as many shots as possible.”

  “Yes. From what I can see, and after consulting a gunsmith, I’d gather that only one barrel hit him. The other must have missed. The second report was some time after the first and it looks as if the murderer stalked or chased his victim and then, coming-up with him, gave him the choke barrel.”

  “You are here for medical evidence only, Dr. Buckley…”

  “I beg your pardon, Mr. Coroner…”

  “Is the gunsmith here?”

  Timothy Twigg, gunsmith, of Hatterworth, was sworn and gave his evidence.

  “Is what Dr. Buckley says correct, Mr. Twigg? In other words, was the charge of shot extracted by the doctor likely to be the contents of one cartridge, or more?”

  “Judging from the spread of the shots and the number, one barrel only did the trick.”

  Mr. Twigg was a little, cadaverous man, with a face like a wedge, and a bald head. He was enjoying his position as expert witness.

  “Did Sykes purchase his cartridges from you?”

  “Yes, sir. He and Trickett used the same brand and the same size of shots. Number fives, as a rule. They might have loaded a few of their own. A lot of working-men round here do that, you know.”

  “Yes, yes. Now, Mr. Twigg, I understand you’ve examined the pellets extracted from the body. What size were they?”

  “They were mixed. Number fours and number fives. Some sportsmen have a theory that although fours give a smaller load, they hit harder. A good shot, therefore, is surer of a kill with fours. A mixed loading, of course, either involves a special order, or else a man must load his own cartridges.”

  “You have said that local sportsmen load their own cartridges. Did either Sykes or Trickett buy shots from you for such purposes?”

  “No, sir. But of course, there are other gunsmiths, and often, men will place a large order with a firm out of town and then share it out among several of them. It’s cheaper to buy in bulk.”

  “Very good, thank you, Mr. Twigg. That will do.”

  The remaining witness was Buller, a gamekeeper, who seems to have been the last to see the men alive. He said he met them separately, both going in the direction of Hatterworth. He spoke to neither of them, nor noticed anything unusual about them, except that Sykes seemed to have about as much liquor as he could carry.

  Mr. Butterworth thereupon addressed his jury. The latter consisted of local men, shopkeepers, clerks and the like, and they took the job very seriously. The coroner explained the virtues, at that juncture, of finding a verdict against persons unknown. The police were on the track of a suspect, and, in due course, if he were apprehended, such a verdict would give him a fair chance of clearing himself, without in any way impeding the police.

  The jury were headstrong, however, and returned their verdict of wilful murder against Enoch Sykes.

  Mr. Butterworth was very annoyed at this disobedience and showed his disapproval by dismissing them after the fashion of unruly schoolboys, with frowns, furious contortions of his eyebrows, and not a word of thanks.

  Pickersgill agreed with the verdict. He had made up his mind, and set in motion the machinery of the law for tracing the missing man. On the information lodged by the landlord of the Horse and Jockey, he laid Three-Fingers and his woman by the heels, although they had, by this time, reached Sheffield. Both vehemently denied seeing either the body on the morning of its discovery, or anything of Trickett or Sykes during their prowling of the moor in search of free lodgings on the previous evening.

  Meantime, every policeman in the British Isles was on the look-out for Sykes. The Army, Navy and R.F.C. recruiting offices were combed and the ranks were scrutinized. Nothing. Mrs. Sykes, the missing man’s mother, was closely watched, in case he might be hiding with her connivance. One so demented, however, could hardly be guilty of such an offence. It seemed unreasonable to harry the simple, distressed widow.

  At length, it was assumed that Sykes must have joined some branch of the forces and met his death incognito. The loss of so many of the town’s men in the war gave people other things to think about. The files were closed and the case regarded as ended, although for a long time the search was continued unobtrusively.

  Superintendent Pickersgill regarded his investigations as a triumph, and Sykes’s continued absence as confirming his deductions. In time, he thought of the moorland murder, even though the criminal had vanished, as something of a successful investigation. The coroner’s jury were responsible for this frame of mind. In spite of Mr. Butterworth’s desire to give the suspect a chance to prove himself innocent, a jury of Sykes’s peers had found him guilty and confirmed the Superintendent’s own views. To him, it was a victory.

  Chapter VII

  Dry Bones

  I feel like one who treads alone,

  Some banquet-hall deserted,

  Whose lights are fled, whose garlands dead,

  And all but he departed!

  —Thomas Moore

  “Between you and me,” said Superintendent Haworth, “Pickersgill is a better hen-fancier than a limb of the law. He doesn’t seem to have investigated any angle other than the Sykes one. In this case he behaved just like a horse with blinkers on.”

  The two detectives had gone through all the available notes and evidence connected with the murders on the moor and were now discussing a plan of campaign.

  “Perhaps we oughtn’t to blame him overmuch,” replied Littlejohn. “After all, the scent was so strong and, like a good hound, he kept his nose to it. That’s what the real murderer intended, isn’t it? And, by gad, he pulled it off, too. We’ve nothing left but dry bones and faded memories to work on.”

  “Well, we’d better make a list of the dry bones, as you call ’em, Littlejohn, and see what they can tell us. The inquest this afternoon will probably bring some more information to light, although Griffiths, the police surgeon, is no Dr. Thorndyke. He was industriously extracting pellets from the backbone last time I saw him.”

  They took pencil and paper and listed the characters in the case, like two producers selecting the cast of a play.

  Mary Tatham. Now Mrs. Ryles, former sweetheart of both the murdered men. Living in Marble St., Hatterworth.

  Bill o’ Three-Fingers. Alive and still haunting the locality.

  Peg, his woman at the time of the murder, left him and married a labourer. Living at Waterfold.

  Seth Wigley. Alive, semi-invalid, and living with his daughter at the Horse and Jockey.

  Mrs. Trickett, mother of Jerry. Dead.

  Mrs. Sykes, mother of Enoch. Living in same house in Hatterworth, and apparently retired.

  Benjamin Butterworth, County Coroner. Dead.

  Dr. Buckley, police surgeon at time of murder. Dead.

  Mrs. Myles, former employer of both victims. Alive, aged, and living in Hatterworth.

  Sir Caleb Haythornthwaite, last employer of victims. Still alive and flourishing.

  Buller, gamekeeper on the moor at time of murder. Dead. His son Peter, who often accompanied him, keeps a café, Peter’s Pantry, in Hatterworth.

  Pickersgill, Entwistle, engaged in investigating the murder. Alive and retired.

  “There we are,” said Haworth, laying down his pencil and laboriously shifting his injured limb. “What can we get out of that lot that Pickersgill missed?”

  “We can only do our best,” replied his colleague and rose to go. “I’ll be down at the inquest after lunch, and then we’ll have another conference as to what line we’ll take. This promises to be interesting, if only we can blow the dead embers into a bit of flame. By the way, how will Inspector Ross take my interfering? I take it, he’ll be at the inquest representing the police. I wouldn’t like him to be
peeved, you know.”

  “That’s all right. I’ve had a word with him. He’s delighted that you’re in at it. He’ll share any kudos, being the temporary chief, and a better fellow you couldn’t wish to meet.”

  Of the old firm of Butterworth, Coughey, Mills, Butterworth and Mills, Solicitors, only Mr. Simeon Mills survived. This was somewhat of a public relief, for previously, nobody had known which Butterworth was which in the firm’s title and as for the other Mills, he might have been the invisible man; no-one ever knew or saw him. Mr. Coughey, developing strange ways owing to the incessant nagging of his wife, ran away with his typist just after the death of both the Butterworths. The field was therefore left to the only visible Mills, who assumed the mantle of county coroner unopposed. He presided over the inquest on the poor bones of Enoch Sykes.

  There was a great gathering in the new courthouse and this time, although there was another war on, the coroner reprimanded nobody. In fact, he relished the large audience.

  Mr. Mills was a little, fat fellow, with a clean, red, negroid face, thick, shapeless lips, and a head completely bald except for a fringe behind his ears. He wore large pince-nez, heavily corded, and he had large eyes with bilious, bloodshot whites, which, somehow, reminded Littlejohn of blood oranges. The coroner was a vain, pompous man, who loved to hear himself talk. He opened the proceedings with a little homily on the mistakes which men can make. Here, he said, was a man condemned as a cowardly murderer by a bygone body of jurymen similar to those now assisting him. Now, the one who had for so long been branded with the curse of Cain, was revealed as a victim of the same foul and unknown hand. All of which proved how careful one must be and how essential it was to bring sound and unbiased judgment to a court such as this. He emphasized that his late friend and predecessor, Mr. Butterworth, (here Mr. Mills looked as though he would have bared his head if he had had his hat on it), had advised an open verdict. How wise; how prophetic, even. And he as good as assured his men that he would stand no nonsense from them this time. He then sat back as though expecting noises of approval. None were heard, and the enquiry opened.

  Proof of identity came from various quarters. There was an old fracture of the tibia, for instance, which the victim’s mother recollected. He had fallen in the schoolyard and done it. Then there was the ring on his finger. She identified that, too. It had been his father’s, who had the same Christian name as his son. And a silver hunter watch, too. Also his father’s. Mrs. Sykes had given them both to Enoch junior on his twenty-first birthday. The watch had been pierced by a shot and had stopped at 5.54. Old records showed that to be the time of the first report. Sykes must have been the first victim; Trickett followed.

  Dr. Griffiths could say little, except that the bones tallied with the height and description of the dead man. Judging from the position of the pellets in the backbone and ribs, the murdered man had taken the charge full in the chest. He could not say whether or not death had been instantaneous. He had extracted some of the shots and others had been recovered from the earth around, preserved apparently by the clothing.

  A ballistics expert from Leeds followed the doctor and stated that the sizes of the shots were fours and fives. Apparently a mixed charge! Two barrels of the same gun might have killed the two former friends. The shotgun unearthed beside the bones of Sykes had been unloaded when examined.

  Inspector Ross gave a very able synopsis of the former crime and Mr. Simeon Mills, not to be outdone, made the solo into a duet, which prolonged the proceedings without doing much except confuse the jury. They returned a verdict of murder against person or persons unknown, without retiring. Mr. Mills told them to do so and, unlike their forefathers, who were more independent, they obeyed.

  The police were not disposed to do much in the way of interrogation until after the funeral of Sykes. It was a strange affair.

  Mrs. Sykes had long been sure that her son was dead. She had never believed him guilty, knowing his nature and, mother-like, refusing to permit the idea of his being a killer ever to enter her mind. She had mourned him as lost, time had taken her grief but not her pleasant memories of happier days, and she had adapted herself to circumstances with fortitude. Her friends at the Methodist Chapel had treated her kindly and never shown any change of front towards her through her son’s presumed infamy. Other townsfolk, however, had been less charitable. She had, in certain quarters, been regarded as almost as abhorrent as her son, and been saddled with scorn for having brought him into the world at all. Vicariously, she had suffered much of his punishment. She had lived through it; it was almost forgotten; she could move through the streets, at length, without a single accusing head being turned to or from her. Now, the whole thing was reaped-up again. This time, however, sympathy was universal. The woman who had been ostracized, became almost a popular heroine. Anxious to make-up for the suffering once heaped upon her, her onetime detractors overdid it. They turned-up in droves at the funeral of the poor remains of her son.

  Mrs. Sykes did not want it. She had forgotten her grief. The bones meant nothing to her. She was just seeing them decently put away in the grave where, thirty years before, she had left her husband. The contents of the simple coffin, behind which she followed in a cab, accompanied by the Rev. Gotobed and two or three of her friends from the Ladies’ Sewing Class, did not seem to her to contain the remains of her son. Short of knowing where he was for twenty or more years, she had buried him in her heart, and there he was going to stay. Littlejohn watched her from a distance at the cemetery. She was bewildered at the public ceremony and the large audience. She was dressed in old, rather shabby black, and wore a long-outmoded hat. Her face reminded Littlejohn of those in woodcuts. Angular, with a small, sharp nose and a jutting, determined little chin. Straight-hewn lines instead of curves. She bore herself with self-possession and a calm dignity which put the superficial or sham emotions of the public to shame. The storm-tossing which the world had given her had made her the little captain of her own soul.

  Two mornings later, for Sunday intervened, Littlejohn called on Mrs. Sykes. She lived at number 9, William Henry Street, a small cottage in a row of nine. He knocked on the door, which was quickly opened by the old lady herself. She must have mistaken him for a salesman of some sort for, with a “We don’t want anythin’ to-day,” she would have closed the door in his face, had he not hastily announced the purpose of his visit.

  “I’m a police-officer, Mrs. Sykes. May I have a word with you?”

  “Oh. Ah’ve bin expectin’ you. Come in.”

  The front door led right into the living-room. It was as neat and clean as a new pin. An iron kettle was singing on the hob of the shining, blackleaded kitchen range, with its bright steel fender and fire-irons. On the mantelpiece, two old, white china dogs and a small, black marble clock. Coconut matting on the floor and a home-made rug of pieces of old cloth. A rocking-chair and a saddleback in horsehair by the fireside, and two cheap, wooden kitchen chairs with their seats tucked under a plain kitchen table. The latter was covered in white American-leather and on it was a pint mug. The woman was apparently making herself a morning cup of tea. The sideboard was of heavy mahogany and bore two complicated ornaments with lustres dangling from them and protected from the dust by a glass shade. There was a small clock, too, and its pendulum, in the form of a little girl sitting on a swing, flew to and fro with dizzy monotony.

  Mrs. Sykes was a small, wiry woman, with white hair drawn tightly back from her forehead and fixed in a small bun at the back. Her eyes were brown and, in the half-light of the dim room, looked like bright, black beads. She had small feet and hands, and her mouth was like a thin, little slit. At close quarters, she still reminded Littlejohn of one of these carved Swiss images of old people, with regular features, clean-hewn and angular and showing evidence of the carver’s knife. She wore a black skirt, a home-knitted dark-blue jumper, and a white apron tied round the waist. With the apron she dusted the saddleback chair and b
ade the detective sit himself down.

  “Will you ’ave a cup o’ tea?” she asked hospitably, evidently taking a fancy to Littlejohn.

  “Gladly, thank you, Mrs. Sykes.” She brought out a cup and saucer, probably part of her best tea-set, brewed the tea in an earthenware pot and poured it out.

  “Now, what can ah do for you, mesther?” she asked as they sipped their drinks.

  “I know this is perhaps going to be a bit painful for you, Mrs. Sykes, but it’s got to be done. You see the discovery of your son’s body…”

  “Bones,” interjected Mrs. Sykes with brave realism.

  “…Bones, then. The discovery has re-opened a case which has slept for a long time. In brief, your son is cleared of a suspicion which has long hung over him. Now we’ve to try and find who killed not only Trickett, but Enoch as well.”

  “It’s not painful at all to me, mesther. All my pain were gone through long-since. Ah’m glad to know as my lad’s innocent. Ah never believed ’im guilty, but there were some as wouldn’t be told. Ah don’t want revenge on anybody. Them as did it’s ’ad it on their consciences and that’s its own punishment. But that doesn’t mean to say ah’ll not give a civil answer to a civil question. So you can ask away, mesther, and ah’ll try to answer.”

  “Well, how long had Trickett and your son been friends?”

  “All their lives. Last thing eether on ’em would ’ave done was to kill th’other. Neether of them was hot-tempered.”

  “But, they quarrelled about a girl?”

  “Aye. Perhaps it was Enoch’s fault. Mary was always a nice girl, and she still is. But Enoch was so taken-up with his new job, that he neglected ’er a bit. They were working overtime and he was so busy with his own plans. Jerry was more happy-go-lucky and when Mary jilted Enoch, wasn’t long in takin’-up with her himself. They’d both wanted her ever since she was a kid. Jerry’s gettin’ Mary seemed to wake Enoch up, but it were too late. And then him that had been T.T. all his life, started drinkin’. Nothing ah could do would stop ’im. He got that quarrelsome and moody, too. But ah will say, that whoever else he quarrelled wi’, he never ’ad a wrong word for his mother.”