Enter Second Murderer (5 page)

It was Vince. Faro had forgotten that he too would be impatiently awaiting his supper, at the end of a long day in Dr. Kellar's surgery.

Faro gave him a hard look, knowing that Mrs. Brook, agog with curiosity about the mysterious woman who had suddenly appeared, must have sent him up post-haste to report on what was now taking place in the drawing-room.

As Faro made the introductions, Vince's eyebrows shot upwards at the name Hymes.

"This lady is his twin sister."

Vince bowed over her hand, holding it now with an anxious, searching glance into her countenance that betrayed the doctor's interest.

"I have been a great nuisance," she said, "burdening the Inspector with my troubles. Your stepfather is a kind man and a very good listener."

Vince's quizzical glance demanded explanation.

"Miss Hymes does not believe that her brother murdered Lily Goldie."

"Indeed? Then if there was someone else, I can assure you, madam, my stepfather is just the man to hunt him down. He is marvellously clever, you know. No one could ever escape him for ever-"

"Steady on, Vince, I'm not infallible—and I cannot allow you to give Miss Hymes false hopes. The case is closed officially, remember."

Vince made an impatient gesture. "But if he does exist—this other murderer—then this is the very man for the job." He pointed dramatically at Faro, the lamplight glinting on his pale hair, suddenly the picture of an avenging angel. "Come now, there must be clues, Stepfather, and you are quite excellent on clues."

Faro's reply was modest and non-committal. He was amazed amd moved that this boy, once so sneering, so wilful, even cruel on occasion, had vanished and left a gallant, caring and suddenly frighteningly vulnerable individual. Vulnerable—was that the word? Was this dropping of the scales from his eyes conditioned by familiarity, familiarity that had blinded him to the qualities of the man emerging from the chrysalis of youth, a man who would some day make a fine doctor— unless some day his vulnerability to defenceless womankind seriously affected his good sense?

"Where are you living in Edinburgh?"

"Nowhere. But I return to Glasgow to my—friends." A bout of coughing cut her short again. She stood breathless, and Vince's solemn shake of the head in Faro's direction confirmed his worst fears.

"Then I will get a cab and see you safely to the railway station."

"No—you are too kind, Doctor."

"Not kind, Miss Hymes. It is my pleasure. I will be back directly."

As Vince dashed downstairs and out into the street, Faro assisted his visitor to the front door. "I should not have let him go to all this trouble. Please persuade him that I am perfectly capable of making my own—way." Again she was shaken by the coughing that the slightest exertion seemed to bring about.

"Please give me your address."

There was hope in her eyes as she opened her reticule and took out a slip of paper. "I have it here. You will let me know. . . ?"

The sound of wheels on the cobbled street announced the arrival of Vince and the cab. Together they assisted her inside, and Faro's last sight of Maureen Hymes was a frail hand raised in his direction, and lips forming the word, "Promise . . . promise ..."

As he closed the front door and walked slowly upstairs again, Faro realised that he had never before seen how his stepson reacted to a woman in distress, even a female long past thirty. He had rarely seen him in young female company, except as a boy at parties, bullying and tormenting small girls into screaming fits. Handsome he was, even then, but under that angelic appearance a frightful bully, who had never been asked to parties a second time.

After all, few children are little angels, and he included his own dear Rose and Emily.

As he sat down and penned a loving response to their postcard, he was glad they had each other as comfort in their bereavement. Strange, although they adored each other now, Rose had been an extremely jealous two-year-old. When Emily lay newly born and rather raw-looking in her mother's arms, Rose had studied her carefully. "She's not very pretty, is she? I like my dolls better than her. Can we send her back now, Mama?"

At least his daughters were the product of a happy and secure life. One day they would recover from the shattering grief of losing their mother. Born of their parents' wedded love, they had not suffered the stigma of bastardy which Vince had doubtless endured most painfully in his childhood. Even though his mother's little lapse was overlooked by the adult population, he imagined that the crofter children would not be ready to forgive so easily when they had the opportunity to hurt so cruelly. Doubtless Vince's difficult childhood had its roots in an ill-treatment he would be too proud to discuss with his mother.

When Vince returned. Faro looked at him gratefully. Thank God his fears—and Lizzie's—about the way the lad would turn out were ended. He only wished she could see her son now. How proud she would be of the man he had become.

"That was very good of you, lad," he said as Vince followed him across the hall.

"It was the least I could do for a dying woman. Her life is now measured in days, hours, even, and I doubt exceedingly if she will reach Glasgow alive. She will certainly never return to Edinburgh." He stood with his back to the blaze, since dining in a fireless room at the height of summer was unthinkable to Mrs. Brook. "A good blaze is as nourishing as a good meal" was one of her most frequent quotations.

The furniture which Faro had inherited with the house was handsome and mellowed with age and usage, in keeping with an elderly doctor's establishment, and the massive Sheraton sideboard had once accommodated an army of chafing dishes. For convenience, he and Vince sat together, easing Mrs. Brook's serving arrangements and also the discomfort of being isolated at either end of a very long and exceedingly well-polished table intended to seat members of the large family Faro knew he was unlikely now to produce.

Mrs. Brook stood by the sideboard, waiting impatiently to serve Scotch broth and a saddle of roast lamb.

Faro's hunger pangs suddenly vanished at the sight of food in such large quantities. "We should have invited Miss Hymes to dine with us."

"In that case she would never have boarded the Glasgow train. Besides, I fancy that she is also well beyond consuming solid food. The journey must have cost her dearly, Stepfather. As a matter of fact, I suspect that she sealed her own death warrant."

While Vince ate his second helping of rice pudding with boyish relish and delight, and Mrs. Brook closed the shutters against the dangerous vapours of the night, Faro told Vince the purpose of Maureen Hymes's visit—a sorry tale that was quite at odds with this peaceful domestic setting, enhanced by candlelight whose flickering light in the mantelpiece mirror gave shimmering life to the landscapes in their gilt-framed oil paintings. A bowl of red roses added their sweet perfume to wax polish and cracking logs.

"So, Stepfather, what are you going to do?"

Faro swore under his breath, suddenly resentful of being thrust into a situation he felt was growing rapidly out of his control. It was upon such occasions that he paused to wonder what God-forsaken destiny had led him to the Edinburgh City Police instead of a farmer's life in Orkney, which his mother would have dearly loved.

He shook his head. "I don't know, but sometimes I think I chose the wrong job. Or maybe I'm just getting too old for it."

Vince smiled. "Now, Stepfather, that's not like you. You're just tired. Tomorrow and a good night's rest, and everything will look quite different. Believe me."

Chapter 4

Two days later a letter addressed to "Inspector Faro" arrived from Glasgow. It said briefly that Maureen Hymes had died that same night she returned from Edinburgh. "Her last words were for you. Tell the Inspector to remember his promise.'"

Faro thrust it across the breakfast table. "Seems you were right in your diagnosis, lad."

"Poor creature," said Vince as he read. "You know, it often happens like that with twins, particularly identical more than fraternal ones. Curiously, their life-span is the same, and when one dies the other does not long survive." Handing the letter back, he said, "Well, Stepfather, what are you going to do now?"

"I don't see what I can do."

Vince smiled. "Come now, a promise is a promise, Stepfather."

"The poor woman is dead."

Vince shook his head. "That is beside the point. Where, may I ask, is your chivalry?"

"Killed stone dead by twenty years with the police, I expect." Faro sighed. "You do talk nonsense sometimes, lad. Can you imagine me persuading the Superintendent that I want to reopen the Hymes murder case—on the dying wish of his sister?"

Vince pushed aside his breakfast egg before replying. "Has the thought not struck you that there might be some other clue that wasn't followed up in the evidence? After all, they did miss Ferris's photograph when you were off the case. Shall we have a shot at it, Stepfather?"

"We?"

"Of course." Vince took a piece of toast and buttered it thoughtfully. "Of course. I intend to lend a hand whenever available on the assumption—begging your pardon—that two heads are better than one. With my still somewhat scanty medical knowledge and your powers of deduction, I think we might make the perfect team. You know, Stepfather, I've always had a fancy to play policeman." He grinned. "Frankly, I didn't care for you when you came courting Mama—"

"I did notice," said Faro.

Vince nodded. "Actually, it was my secret pride at having a policeman in our family that completely converted me to having you as stepfather. How I bragged to everyone at school!"

Faro smiled. "I'm glad there was something to redeem me in your eyes. You were far from the easiest of children."

"I was an absolute horror," Vince admitted cheerfully. "So—you will let me help. Between us, we might even produce a second murderer, and wouldn't that make your policemen jolly uncomfortable!"

"I shouldn't entertain too many hopes there, lad. If he existed, and if he's wise, he will have disappeared long since. The trail is cold and whatever we find it can't help Hymes or his sister now."

"Hymes was an idiot. You have to admit that, Stepfather."

Faro shook his head sadly. "You're young yet. The
crime passionnel
is the most brutal of murders to our civilised minds, the one we are least likely to excuse or forgive, of love gone sour. It is also the most frequent in the annals of crime. You haven't any idea yet what savagery can arouse even the most timid of husbands when he feels that he has been betrayed by the wife he loves."

"Nor have I any intention of finding out. Marriage is not for ambitious young doctors with an eye to becoming Queen's Physician one day."

"You might well do both, given time, and the right woman."

"The right woman. Stepfather? I doubt if any such creature exists except between the covers of romantic novelettes—certainly not between wedded bedcovers, at any rate."

When Faro smiled wryly, Vince continued, "I see you don't believe me, but I mean it, Stepfather. As for Hymes, can you credit any man being fool enough to be hanged because of his conscience—and all for a worthless whore? He could have taken ship from Leith and been a hundred miles away. Now, the clever murderer, who uses his head and not his heart, and plans the perfect crime, I'd have respect for such a man—respect and admiration, too."

"There's no such thing as a clever murderer, lad. They always give themselves away in the end."

"That I don't believe. The police can be absurdly simple—not all detectives are as clever or infallible as my respected stepfather."

"I'm far from infallible. In every eye there is a blind spot."

"But not in yours."

"Oh yes, in mine too."

"Perhaps you'll meet him some day, then, this murderer who is clever enough to find your blind spot."

"If he exists, then I hope that neither of us ever have that misfortune."

Vince smiled. "Come now, Stepfather, could you resist such a challenge? A man who pits his wits against all the odds, in a tricky game of life—to the death," he added dramatically, slashing the air with an imaginary sabre.

Faro regarded him doubtfully. With all the reckless enthusiasm of youth, Vince regarded the whole idea as no end of a lark.

"Splendid. You won't forget, by the way, that we have tickets for
Othello
on Wednesday. I've told Rob and Walter that it's your favourite play, and they agree with me that you need cheering up."

Faro thanked him bleakly.
Othello
would hardly be a cheering experience. In the hands of bungling amateurs it would probably depress him unutterably, but Vince and his friends meant well.

"Has it occurred to you. Stepfather, that there is a great deal of similarity between Othello and Hymes?"

Faro gave him a sharp look. How odd that the same idea had occurred to him at that last melancholy interview.

"Othello, you must admit," Vince continued, "was even more stupid than Hymes. Can you imagine any man gullible as the Moor rising to illustrious heights as Shakespeare tells us? A man who would murder his lovely young Desdemona on Iago's testimony? People don't behave like that in real life. Othello would have had a shocking row with her and then all would have been tearfully revealed."