Swing, Swing Together

CHAPTER 20

The search for the three wanted men, Humberstone, Gold and Lucifer, was given the highest priority. At the Chief Constable’s orders every fit man in the City force was deployed. Those who had done night duty were recalled after four hours, and the police reserve were used for house-to-house inquiries. Hotels, public houses, shops, parks, music halls, the college precincts, even houses of accommodation were visited and Cribb’s meticulous description of the three recited, followed by the grim injunction, “If you should recognize these men, do not approach them yourself. Call a policeman. They are wanted for questioning in connection with a serious charge.”

Despite the thoroughness of the description and search nothing of importance was found until late in the afternoon, when a check was made of the skiffs lashed together near Magdalen Bridge in the Cherwell and one was found to be the Lucrecia. The covers were taken off and the luggage removed for examination. The two wicker baskets and one carpetbag contained between them three pairs of pyjamas, two towels, three blankets, toothbrushes, combs, leather boots, a map of the Thames, a set of playing cards and two bottles of cider. “What did you expect?” asked the sergeant who had found the boat. “A signed confession?”

Cribb had come back from Merton convinced that Bonner-Hill had been murdered in the same fashion as Walters, the tramp at Hurley. “He must have met his murderers early in the morning,” he told Thackeray and Harriet in a room at Oxford Police Station. “It was a quiet backwater, with nobody about. They approached him in their boat and got him aboard on some pretext. Then one of them must have pinioned his arms, while another gripped him round the neck, applying pressure to the artery until he lost consciousness. It wasn’t strangulation; that would have been too obvious. Even so, some marks were left around the neck and shoulders. Once he was insensible, they heaved him over the side and held his face under for long enough to fill his breathing passages with water. Verdict: drowning. So many bodies are taken from the Thames that there was every chance of the coroner finding a verdict of death by misadventure or suicide. The possibility of murder wouldn’t arise unless there was something suspicious. Our set of murderers didn’t reckon on the marks appearing on the victims’ necks after death.”

Thackeray’s mouth shaped as if to whistle, but drew in breath instead. “Killing two men in cold blood like that! The calculation in it-it’s horrible. Most murders you can understand, even if you don’t altogether agree with the outcome. Jealous husbands, neglected wives, sons and daughters wanting to inherit-murder’s a family thing, as often as not. But killing strangers as a way to pass the time on a river trip isn’t nice, not nice at all.”

“It’s beyond understanding,” said Harriet, still tortured by the knowledge that she might have averted Bonner-Hill’s death. “Where is the reason in it? It’s quite insane.”

“I can’t agree with that, miss,” said Cribb. “There’s a good intelligence behind all this. It may be inspired by the Devil, but it’s coolly planned, I’m sure of that. Here we are at the end of a summer when young men in hundreds have taken to the river, paddling gaily up to Oxford like the three in Mr. Jerome’s book. It’s high ton-the thing to do. Good sport, good exercise, good fun. A world away from sudden death. Who would believe in a party of assassins in a skiff? Murderers in straw hats? It’s preposterous-and that’s why they’ve done it. Three men in a boat, not to mention the dog, doing the journey in the book lock by lock, pausing only to commit jolly little murders at intervals along the way.”

“For amusement, Sarge?” said Thackeray, his face a study.

“Well, it wasn’t for gain, or they’d have taken the money the tramp was carrying. Can you think of any other reason? I wondered first of all whether the first murder-of Choppy Walters-was to try out the method. If you think of it callously, as they would, a tramp is a perfect subject for trying out your skills as a murderer. Nobody notices a vagrant, or misses him when he isn’t seen any more. If that’s what the first murder was about, a dress rehearsal, so to speak, it suggests that the second was the real performance. In other words, they’d been planning Bonner-Hill’s destruction from the start. A neat idea-until you recollect that Bonner-Hill wouldn’t have been alone in the backwater without Fernandez getting laryngitis, and that’s a circumstance they couldn’t have planned for.”

“So they happened to see Bonner-Hill alone in his punt and decided to kill him, just like that,” said Thackeray, still struggling to accept the truth of what he was saying.

“Just like that.”

“And they’re quite liable to do it again. Glory, Sarge, we’ve got to stop them this time!”

For Harriet, the last two words were twists of a dagger. She covered her face with her hands.