The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 7 Part 12

"Then why is he here? Why did Landru flee abroad?"

"People leave their countries for all sorts of reasons. Mr Helsing left Germany thirty years ago because he was invited here. He's now as English as I am. You and Mrs Crippen left America because you felt you could better yourselves here."

Crippen groaned inwardly. "Let's not talk about why my wife and I emigrated," he said. "What I can a.s.sure you is that we were not in flight from a police warrant."

Picking up the coal scuttle, he excused himself and went off to the cellar. Before he descended the stairs, he picked up an oil lamp to light his way. It was cold and dank in the cellar. s.h.i.+vering his way down the steps, he told himself that there were far better ways to spend New Year's Eve than being at his wife's beck and call in a house filled with her friends. Mabel and Dorothy were acceptable company. For the others, he had nothing but contempt. Of Landru, he had a positive loathing. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he put the coal scuttle aside so that he could open the door with a free hand then he raised the lamp to illumine the scene. What he saw made him step backwards and let out a gasp of horror. Face down on a heap of coal was a man whose head had been smashed open. It was Angus Rennie.

Crippen stayed long enough to make sure that the Scotsman was dead then he closed the door and put his back against it. As he considered what to do, his heart was pounding. Somewhere upstairs was a killer, someone who'd been provoked beyond measure by Rennie and turned on him. Landru was the obvious suspect but Helsing had also clashed with the man. Nor could the women be discounted. All three of them had been hara.s.sed at some stage of the evening by Rennie. Crippen reeled as a thought struck him. Had Cora struck the fatal blow? Was he married to a murderer? Having regained his composure, he opened the door to take a closer look at the victim. Blood surrounded the scalp wound. There were no other marks upon the Scotsman.

Crippen used the lamp to guide himself to the top of the stairs. As he entered the parlour, he found Cora still expressing disapproval of the projected strike. Mabel, who was on the committee of the Variety Artistes Federation, was strongly in favour of it. Helsing supported her. Dorothy took no part in the argument.

"We have to stand up to the managers," insisted Helsing.

"It's all very well for you to say that, Otto," retorted Cora. "You're famous and in constant demand. I'm neither of those things. If I go on strike, managers will never employ me again."

"Yes, they will," said Mabel, earnestly. "If we take united action, we can close every music hall in the land. We'll only go back to work on our terms and that means getting paid for every matinee."

"Excuse me," said Crippen, walking over to them.

"Don't interrupt us now," snarled Cora. "This is important."

"It's not as important as what I have to say, my dear."

She turned on him. "Where's the coal? Can't you even manage to fill a scuttle on your own?"

"Mr Rennie is dead."

"What are you talking about?" she snapped.

"Angus Rennie is in the coal cellar. He's been murdered."

The others looked stunned but Cora was furious.

"Is this some kind of a joke?" she said.

"If you don't believe me, go and see for yourself."

"I'll do that," said Helsing, seriously. "Your husband is not in the habit of making jokes, Cora. I'm inclined to believe him."

As the magician left the room, the three women felt the full impact of what they'd just heard. Dorothy emitted a cry, Mabel put a hand to her heart and sank into a chair while Cora glared at her husband as if blaming him for the sudden interruption to their celebrations. It was not long before Helsing returned.

"It's the truth," he acknowledged. "Rennie is dead."

"How?" cried Cora.

"Who could have done such a thing?" asked Mabel in a daze. "We must call the police immediately."

"No," decided Crippen, feeling empowered for once. "I want to uncover the truth first. I want to unmask the killer myself."

"Well, don't look at me," said Cora, huffily. "I liked Angus."

"I detested the fellow," admitted Helsing, "but that doesn't mean I'd bludgeon him like that."

"Is that how it happened?" asked Dorothy, tremulously.

"Someone hit him with a lump of coal."

"What on earth was he doing down there?"

"We must put that question to Landru," said Crippen.

It was at that precise second that the Frenchman walked back into the room. He was startled when they all turned to look at him so intently. He ran a finger around the inside of his collar.

"Something, there is wrong?" he asked.

"Where have you been, Monsieur?" said Crippen.

"I go out for the fresh air."

"It must be freezing cold out there."

"I not like to be indoors all the time," explained Landru. "I take the little walk."

"And did that little walk include a visit to the coal cellar?"

The Frenchman shrugged. "But no why should it?"

"Because that's where Mr Rennie was killed," said Helsing, looming over him. "That's where someone battered him to death."

"Is not me," pleaded Landru, eyes darting.

"You didn't like Mr Rennie, did you?"

"No, sir, is true. I no like him."

"He baited you time and again."

"What is this 'baited' you say?"

"He provoked you," said Crippen. "He insulted you. He called you names. You were bound to be upset."

"I no touch the man."

"You wanted revenge."

"Is not true I swear it."

"I believe him," said Cora, stoutly. "You only have to look into his eyes. Henri takes after my husband. He's too gentle by nature to commit a murder."

"Even the gentlest of men will strike out if pushed to extremes," said Crippen, grimly. "Let me suggest two things to you, Monsieur. The first is this. I put it to you that the reason you hate to be cooped up inside a house is that you served a prison sentence. You can't stand being locked away." Landru gulped and brought both hands up to his face. "I had a feeling I might be right on that score."

Cora blenched. "A prison sentence whatever was his crime?"

"He's a swindler, my dear."

"Is a lie," howled Landru. "I not guilty."

"Listen to my second suggestion," said Crippen. "You fled to England because the French police were after you for another crime."

"Is a mistake, Dr Crippen."

"We don't need to hear any more of this," said Helsing, grabbing Landru's wrist. "He needs to be arrested for murder. I'll detain him here while someone calls the police."

Crippen headed for the door. "Leave that to me."

Hilldrop Crescent was a leafy thoroughfare off the Camden Road. When Crippen came out of the house, he saw a clutch of revellers waiting to greet the approaching New Year with flagons of beer in their hands. He spoke to one of them and the man eventually agreed to run to the nearest police station. Returning to the house, Crippen first went into his dispensary. When he found what he was after, he slipped it into his pocket. A loud scream from the parlour alerted him. Rus.h.i.+ng into the hall, he collided with Landru who knocked him flying before fleeing through the front door. Crippen got up and went into the parlour where he saw Otto Helsing sprawled on the floor with blood dribbling from his nose. Dorothy was crying and Mabel was bending solicitously over the magician. As if by reflex, Cora identified her husband as the culprit.

"This is your fault, Hawley," she said, bitterly. "You should have stayed here to hold him. He punched Otto and ran away."

"That proves he was the killer," declared Helsing, rising to his feet and dabbing at his nose with a handkerchief. "So much for him being too gentle, Cora the man's a violent criminal."

"He may be a criminal," said Crippen, calmly, "but he didn't murder Angus Rennie. I'm certain of it."

"Don't be so obtuse, man. Use your eyes."

"My ears proved to be more useful, Otto. When I went into the street just now, there were several people who'd been out there for the past hour. One of them told me he saw a strange man come out of this house and walk up and down for at least fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes," he emphasized. "It was during that time that someone took Mr Rennie's life in the coal cellar. Whoever killed him, therefore, it couldn't possibly have been Henri Landru."

Cora was aghast. "Are you saying that it must be one of us?"

"You're not a suspect, my dear," said Crippen, "and neither is Miss Quinn. She and I were in Landru's room, searching for evidence, when the murder took place." He looked from Helsing to Mabel then back again. "That leaves only two possibilities."

"Don't you dare accuse me," bl.u.s.tered Helsing. "I never went near the man. Dotty will vouch for that."

"I can only speak for the time we were together," said Dorothy, quailing under his glare. "We were separated during that last game then Dr Crippen and I went off to look at a French newspaper."

"Stand by me, Dotty."

"I must tell the truth."

"The truth is that I never got close to the fellow."

"You didn't appear to go near the victim," said Crippen, "but then you're a master of illusion. You know how to do one thing while seeming to do something quite different. A magician who can make his a.s.sistant disappear before our very eyes could easily contrive to kill someone without apparently getting close to him."

Helsing folded his arms defiantly. "I won't say another word."

"You won't have to, Otto, because I know you're innocent. I go down the cellar every day," Crippen went on, "so I know how dirty your hands can get when you pick up a piece of coal. You need to wash them thoroughly and the obvious place to do that is in the kitchen." His eyes flicked to Mabel. "That's where I found you, pretending to look for oatmeal bread."

Mabel gave a hollow laugh. "You surely don't think that I had anything to do with this?" she said. "Angus was a strong man. How could I possibly have got the better of someone like that?"

"With a little a.s.sistance, I suspect." Crippen took a small box from his pocket. "This used to contain a dozen grains of hyacin. It's now empty. You knew where I kept my drugs, Mabel. You also knew the properties of hydrobromide of hyacin. It's what they use at Royal Bethlehem Hospital to subdue restless patients. It was administered to your own husband before he pa.s.sed away there."

"Stop it!" she begged, burying her face in her hands.

"I watched Angus Rennie badgering you all evening. He knew that your husband had died in an asylum because I was there when Cora told him. He felt that you were fair game," continued Crippen. "He hounded you, Mabel. He molested you at some point so you stole the hyacin to slip into his whiskey."

"I only meant to calm him down," she wailed.

"A couple of grains would have done that. You deliberately gave him a fatal dose, one that would make him delirious at first then very drowsy. You lured him down the cellar," said Crippen, levelly, "and hit a defenceless man on the head so that it looked as if he'd been battered to death. In fact, it would simply have left him with a very bad headache because you didn't have the strength to crack his skull." He held the box high. "This is what killed him, isn't it? And the beauty of it was that you had an obvious scapegoat in Landru."

Cora was staggered by her husband's skill in working out what had happened. She was also shocked to realize that her close friend had committed a murder and wished that she'd never agreed to have Hogmanay celebrations in the house. She looked at Mabel with a mixture of fear and disgust. Helsing and Dorothy had already backed away from the killer. There was a long silence. It was broken by the rapping of the door knocker. Crippen went out into the hall.

At the very moment he opened the door, bells rang out in the distance and delighted revellers in the street began to sing a welcome to 1907. The policeman beamed at Crippen.

"Happy New Year, sir," he said. "What's this about a murder?"

FRUITS.

Steve Mosby.

CAROLINE.

This place is very different to the home we shared. My small cell is made of bare sandstone. The walls make the floor dusty: I think the breeze from the single, barred window is gradually eroding the surfaces, so that when I pace, my bare feet swipe the slabs, sounding like a broom across dry floorboards. If I shout through the window, my voice disappears across the field and into the trees, sounding like nothing.

I have a dirty mattress for a bed, and a hole in the floor for a toilet. The door is at the far side. I've never seen it open, but every day I wake up to find the man has somehow placed a tray just inside. He brings me a pitcher of water, several thin curls of ham, a chunk of bread, a wedge of cheese, and two bright green apples.

I focus on the apples. I don't know why, but I do.

Today, he left me this pencil and sc.r.a.p of paper too, presumably because he knows I used to be a writer. I think he expects me to write to him.

Instead, I'm writing to you. For you. Because I always did.

If I can, I'll write more tomorrow.

John.

Do you remember the evening I signed the contract, when we had champagne together? I think about that a lot: a pointless tatter of memory. It's like studying a treasure map for a land I can't visit anymore. But it keeps me occupied.

You'd always had faith in my fiction, through all the penniless years, and you forced us to mark the occasion. I wanted sparkling wine; you insisted on champagne. As we drank, I imagined its history: the transformation from the grapes on the sun-drenched vines into the liquid in the bottle before us, fizzing with a different kind of life. I thought about the things that had died to enable our celebration, and I felt guilty. But you were so proud of me, and I couldn't tell you. Not then.

I know you'll never read this, but I want you to know: I'm sorry for what I did; we never had a reason to celebrate that night.

And I miss you more than I can ever say.