Wobble to Death

FRIDAY
CHAPTER 13

Francis Mostyn-smith had decided who the next victim would be. During his solitary circuits in the small hours of Friday he found time to contemplate the crimes. One could not hope to make deductions when the entertainment was at its height, with an ill-disciplined crowd and those lamenta-ble instrumentalists bombarding one’s ears. But at night, in an arena deserted by all but one official, concentration was possible.

He had not conclusively identified the murderer. That was more difficult than nominating a victim. He wondered about approaching the police officers with his information. In the morning they would be back in the Hall continuing their investigations. But something made him reluctant to do this. The sergeant in charge of the detective inquiry, the tall, sharp-eyed fellow, did not have the look of a sympa-thetic listener. His overweight assistant, who had been exhausted after that one lap of the track, might be more approachable, but probably lacked the intelligence to follow the argument. In all the circumstances it was best, Mostyn-Smith decided, to thwart the assassin himself. He would warn the victim.

O’Flaherty was soundly asleep, cooling his feet in Dublin Bay, when Mostyn-Smith entered his hut. When the reallo-cation of huts had been made at 1 a.m., O’Flaherty had agreed to move to the empty shack next to the one where Monk had been found. It was smaller than the other, but less draughty, and the bed was softer. The smell of carbolic was not so obvious, either. And Double-barrel had kept the hut at the opposite end of the row; he would have to find some-one else to pester.

It was 3.30 a.m. O’Flaherty was not one of those efficient sleepers who wake at precisely the required time. His brain was not attuned to regular sleep, and this may have accounted for it. But in one respect it was totally reliable; if anything should wake him before his chosen time he knew at once that he was being cheated of sleep.

‘O’Flaherty,’ Mostyn-Smith ventured in a whisper.

No movement.

‘O’Flaherty, old fellow!’ A voiced greeting, with a tap on the shoulder.

Complete absence of any reaction.

‘O’-Fla-her-ty!’ Four syllables mispronounced loudly six inches from the one visible ear.

The Stag was back from Dublin, and awake, but he refused to give any sign of it. Perhaps the voice would go away.

Jesus! What was that?

Mostyn-Smith had found a damp sponge and was squeez-ing it over the Irishman’s face. He jerked into a sitting posi-tion, grabbed Mostyn-Smith by the shoulders of his running-zephyr and yanked him off balance, so that he fell across the bed.

‘If you don’t bloody leave me alone, you little bugger, I’ll strangle you with these hands!’

Murder was exactly the matter Mostyn-Smith had come to discuss. But for the moment he was speechless, and sight-less, for his spectacles had been swept off his nose.

‘What is it this time?’ demanded O’Flaherty. He was an appalling sight, with bloodshot eyes bolting inside a frame of red hair and four days’ growth of beard. Fortunately per-haps, Mostyn-Smith was unable to see him. He groped fran-tically about the blankets for his glasses. The Irishman seriously began to suspect that Double-barrel was drunk. At last the glasses were found and planted on his face.

‘I should apologise-’ he began.

‘So you bloody well should!’

‘It is of the profoundest importance, I do assure you. You see, I had to speak with you before anyone else was awake.’ ‘You made sure of that. What’s the bloody time?’

‘Oh, it must be approaching a quarter to four. Now please listen to me. I am convinced that your life is in grave dan-ger, O’Flaherty.’

‘And what in God’s name makes you think that?’

Mostyn-Smith had recovered some of his poise with his glasses.

‘It is all a matter of deductive principles,’ he explained, but got no further.

‘Now hear this, Mister,’ growled O’Flaherty. ‘You’ve just destroyed a beautiful sleep, and, so help me, I’ve beaten men senseless for less. You come in here and tell me I’m going to be killed and then you blabber about principles. Father Almighty, if there’s killing to be done stay my hand now!’

‘I merely wanted-’

‘Just tell me, in simple words, why you won’t leave me alone.’ O’Flaherty’s mood was swinging from aggression to desperation. ‘I’m in danger, am I? Well tell me this. Have you seen a looney outside with a bloody sledge-hammer looking for me? If you haven’t I’m not interested.’

‘I’ll be brief,’ promised Mostyn-Smith. ‘Mr Darrell is dead, and Monk is dead. You must be the next.’

‘And why, in God’s name, should that be?’

‘Don’t you see? Somebody required Captain Chadwick to win the race. Therefore Darrell had to be stopped. They gave him poison hoping his death would appear to be due to tetanus. And when strychnine was found to be the cause they tried to make it appear that Monk had made a grievous error and then committed suicide. But the post-mortem examination proved that he, too, had been murdered.’

‘You said you’d be brief.’

‘And so I have been. Can’t you see that this homicidal ruf-fian, whoever he is, will not allow anyone to defeat Captain Chadwick? Your splendid efforts on the track have made you a serious contender, a rival to the Captain. You have become an unexpected obstacle to our murderer’s plan, and he will try to remove you, be sure of that.’

‘Thank you,’ said O’Flaherty, without much gratitude in the words. ‘So I’m next for the strychnine. And I’ll tell you something that might surprise you, Double-barrel. It’ll be a mercy to feel the spasms coming on-because I’ll know that in no time at all I’ll be free for ever from you and your bloody safety precautions! Now will you get out and leave me fifteen minutes’ rest before I go to the slaughter?’

Nodding appeasingly, Mostyn-Smith backed towards the door. The reception had not been exactly what he anticipated, but the Irishman was an irascible fellow, and might ponder the logic of the argument when he had controlled his temper. At least one could now return to one’s own endeavours with an unspotted conscience. None the less, he would keep a fatherly eye on the Irishman.

Sergeant Cribb arrived at the Hall early, conscious that there was much to do. Progress had been made, but it would have to be accelerated. Thackeray’s inquiries into the supplier of the poison might provide a lead, yet there was precious little time in which to follow it up. A false name was sure to have been used, and descriptions from shop-keepers were generally altogether too vague. The main pos-sibility of progress was still in the Hall itself. All the suspects except Cora Darrell were there, committed to remain in the Hall until 10.30 p.m. on Saturday.

He had examined the case by every orthodox procedure: sus-pects, means and opportunity, and possible motives. The tim-ing of the crimes, he knew, was fundamental, but it was complicated by the nature of Darrell’s death. The act of mur-der had been committed not when Darrell breathed his last, nor when he first collapsed, but at some time before he drank the ‘bracer’ at 4 a.m. on Tuesday morning. Monk had made up the potion at his lodgings and brought it to the Hall with the other provisions on Sunday night. Some time in the next twenty-four hours the murderer had got into the tent, found the bottle and added the strychnine. If Monk were eliminated, as he had to be now, the possibility of the murderer adding the poison to the drink while Darrell was in the tent was remote. So it was probably done some time during Mon-day, when Monk and Darrell were occupied with the race.

Who had reasons for going into the tent? Darrell, Monk, Herriott-as promoter, Jacobson-as manager, Chadwick (possibly) as a fellow-competitor concerned about mutual facilities and Harvey for a similar reason. Cora, he knew from the newspapers, had been in the tent when she visited the Hall on Monday afternoon, but that was with Monk. Could she and Monk have arranged her husband’s death between them; and would she later have battered Monk to fake the suicide? It was conceivable, for the trainer was already in a stu-por and it would not need a powerful blow from one of those metal struts to see that he remained that way.

So up to five people could have entered the tent without being challenged. And then Cribb remembered. He delved thumb and forefinger into his fob and took out a crumpled piece of newspaper, the account of Monday’s events in the Hall. His thumb-nail settled below a particular sentence.

‘The dressing and feeding accommodation of Chadwick and Darrell contains every appliance for their comfort and convenience; your columnist examined the latter’s commodious tent and consid-ered it worthy of housing a campaigning monarch on some foreign field of battle.’

Cribb winced. The entire sporting Press had to be added to the list of those who could have got into the tent. Abandoning the matter for the moment, he walked over to Chadwick’s tent.

‘Mr Harvey?’

The trainer looked up from a newspaper. He was having a late breakfast of kidneys refused by the Captain that morning. ‘My name’s Cribb-Sergeant Cribb. You’ve probably seen me about the Hall these last few days. You look after Mr Chadwick, don’t you?’

‘Captain Chadwick.’

‘That’s right. Point is, I need to interview him. Straighten out some facts, you know. When’s he coming off the track?’ Harvey was dubious. ‘He comes off at noon, for about twenty minutes, but he won’t welcome questions. He needs all the time for his lunch.’

‘I understand. Shan’t keep him long. I’ll be here at twelve, then. Oh, and er-Mr Harvey.’

‘Yes?’

‘Once you’ve dished up the tripe and onions, be a stout fellow and leave me alone with the guv’nor, will you? Confidential questions, you know.’

There was resentment in Harvey’s nod of acquiescence.

‘FACT IS, CAPTAIN Chadwick, I need your help.’

Cribb was sitting opposite the Champion, who was eating hungrily, averting the sergeant’s keen gaze.

‘I need your help,’ Cribb repeated. ‘Comes a point when you’ve tried every deuced line of inquiry you know, and nothing’s come out of it. So I ask myself what’s to be done. And the answer comes back: get some help. Now you’re a man of education and a military expert too. Strikes me that if anything untoward happened in this arena it wouldn’t pass your notice. I’m right, sir, aren’t I?’

Chadwick sniffed, and took a mouthful of cold chicken. Cribb’s persuasive sallies rarely sank without trace. He was floundering now.

‘You’d have noticed the comings and goings at Darrell’s tent on Monday, for example?’

Another bite at the chicken leg.

Cribb persevered. ‘I believe the reporters were shown the living quarters, and later Mrs Darrell came to see the tent.’ Silence again.

At last Captain Chadwick lifted his napkin to his lips and moustache, wiped them and tossed it aside.

‘For your information-Sergeant’-and he spoke the rank as though he were addressing a crossing-sweeper-‘I am not in the pay of the constabulary, and I feel myself under no obligation to act as their informant. If you wish me to answer questions, then kindly put them in a civil fashion, and not in these obsequious subterfuges.’

‘Very well, sir. How many times have you raced against the late Charles Darrell?’

‘None before this event.’

‘You had not met him before Monday?’

‘We met to sign articles last week. It is the custom in two-man races,’ explained Chadwick, ‘and ours was a race within a race.’

‘Did you have any communication with him before then?’ ‘Merely through the medium of the newspaper that usu-ally arranges such events. He was not the class of man that I am accustomed to meeting with.’

‘And your trainer?’ Cribb continued. ‘Was he in touch with Darrell or his trainer?’

‘I had Darrell watched, if that is what you mean,’ answered Chadwick. ‘It is customary to study one’s adver-saries at their training-though I hardly know why, for my own strategy is unalterable.’

‘And Mr Harvey gave you reports on Darrell’s showing at Hackney?’ continued Cribb, ignoring the last remark. ‘Were they favourable?’

‘He showed promise of being a worthy opponent for a few days, at least. He prepared himself quite thoroughly, I believe.’

‘There was no arrangement between you and Darrell, or between the trainers, as to how the race should be con-ducted?’

Chadwick inhaled loudly and ominously. He did not like the implication in the question.

‘Sergeant, I have no need of prior arrangements with pedestrians who challenge me. I am a serious athlete. However, I believe that my man Harvey mentioned an approach being made by Darrell’s trainer early on Tuesday morning. You will have to ask Harvey about that.’

‘Thank you. I shall.’

‘Is that all then? I am at present trying to engage in a race, you know.’

‘Two other questions, sir. Do you by any chance take any form of stimulant to aid your performance?’

‘If you are asking whether I am in the practice of swal-lowing strychnine, the answer is no. The only chemical that you will find in that cupboard-and you may look if you wish-is a Seidlitz powder, which I imagine even you may find a necessary aperient on occasions. What is your other question?’

‘A personal one, sir. It’s important I know the answer, though. If you win this race you take the prize of five hun-dred pounds. But as a man of fortune you’ll have staked some money on the result, I expect. How much will you col-lect on Saturday, sir?’

Chadwick was on the point of refusing to answer, but Cribb’s final sentence, with its dismissal of the threat from O’Flaherty, was a disarming touch.

‘I don’t see how it affects your investigation. However, the answer is eleven thousand pounds.’

The method. It was useless trying to prevent the next murder without isolating a probable method. Poisoning and gassing had been used; they could not be discounted, but it was likelier that the murderer would vary his style again. A stabbing? Unlikely: that was too crude and too immediate for this stamp of killer. His was the insidious approach. His crimes were open to interpretation as sui-cides, or accidents. He was no sledge-hammer maniac, as O’Flaherty pictured him.

Mostyn-Smith had spent the morning devising, and dis-missing, theories. They had so preoccupied him that he walked for six minutes longer than his schedule allowed, time that he could ill-afford. He had decided, in his thoughtful circumambulations, to sacrifice a portion of his next rest-period and examine O’Flaherty’s new hut. There, surely, was where the murderer would bait his trap. The Irishman had not left the track for lunch before one o’clock on any of the previous days, so it should be possible to make a careful inspection without being disturbed.

He permitted himself twenty minutes in his own hut, resting his legs and eating fruit and honey. This was not a rest-period when he planned to sleep.

By now he had decided that the method would have to be some form of poisoning, after all. Strychnine, of course, was unlikely, but there were so many alternative methods. It was essential to get into O’Flaherty’s hut and examine every-thing that was consumable. His training in medicine had taught him that most known poisons were detectable, by smell or because they were not completely soluble. Any food or drink that appeared at all doubtful he would destroy. The Irishman might not thank him for doing it, but his con-science would at least be clear.

It was time. He wrapped the apple-peelings and core in paper that he kept for the purpose, straightened the bedding and left the hut. Then he dropped the refuse into a bin out-side, noting that it had not been emptied for twenty-four hours. He walked to the back of the huts, towards the ablu-tions area, taking care that anyone watching would not guess at his intentions. When he was quite sure everything was quiet he moved round O’Flaherty’s hut towards the front. At the corner of the building he stopped short. The door was opening from the inside. And O’Flaherty was still on the track.

Mostyn-Smith backed out of sight. Furtively, the tres-passer quit the hut, and moved away at speed towards the arena. There was no mistaking who it was.

Constable Thackeray found Cribb in the police office. ‘Mind if I sit down, Sarge? I’ve been on my feet since six.’ ‘Good man,’ said Cribb from a well-cushioned swivel-chair. Thackeray decided not to press the matter of his fatigue. He had been tramping the London streets because the fog outside had slowed everything, trams, buses and cabs, to less than walking pace. Cribb would not be unsympathetic, but the temptation to make some comparison with the tramp going on inside the Hall would be irresistible. So Thackeray suffered his aching feet without any more comment.

‘You’ve got the search organised for the chemist?’ Cribb inquired.

‘The order’s been passed round, Sarge. The operation should be fully under way by now. The fog won’t help us, though. It’s a job getting any sort of message through in this.’

‘Quite so. How d’you get on at Highbury?’

‘Now that’s really going to interest you,’ said Thackeray confidently. ‘They was nice people. Honest folk, I’d judge, but they’d cover up for Mrs D. if they thought she was in trouble.’

‘You didn’t give ’em that impression, I hope.’

‘I did not.’ Thackeray was slightly affronted. ‘I estab-lished that she was with them yesterday afternoon, and then I inquired when they had seen her previous to that. They was both quite firm about it-man and wife, middle-aged couple. They hadn’t seen Cora since the week before, on Thursday. It’s a weekly arrangement.’

‘Is it, by Jove? Nice work! You asked about Monday evening?’

‘Yes. They was at the Lyceum, watching Irving in some play about Venice.’

‘She lied then. Why should she have done that? Wonder where she really got to that evening.’