Antidote to Venom (21 page)

Stealthily he locked his door, and then taking some clothes from the bed, he fixed them over the fire, bringing them down to the floor all round. Then he crawled underneath, so that his head was in a sort of chamber. Setting his teeth, he seized the tap to turn on the gas. He felt sure he would feel little. There might be some choking or headache, but he was not afraid of either. They would be as nothing to the mental pain he would be rid of.

Then a sharp thrill of dismay passed through him. He couldn't do it! He simply couldn't do it! Up till now it had been different. None of the preparations he had made was irrevocable. But he couldn't reverse the tap if he afterwards wished to. He would be
dead!
He lay there trying to fight what he considered was just weakness.

At last the truth revealed itself to him. It was not the physical suffering he feared—if there would be any. It was not even physical death itself that he shrank from. It was the load he was carrying which had made life impossible for him, and now this load was adding nameless and hideous terrors to death. He could die, he told himself, easily and gladly even, if first he could clear his conscience. In spite of his reason, he knew that as he was, he couldn't face death.

Shakily he got up and went back to bed. He would postpone his decision till the morning. Perhaps then he would see some better way.

He wondered whether if he were to leave a confession, it would ease his mind. He thought it might. But he doubted whether a confession written before suicide would be enough. It was surely not the act of confession so much as the realisation that others knew his story. Must he not be there to experience that? Must he not, in fact, be there to take the consequences?

But that, he saw at once, was insane. It was arguing in a complete circle. To escape the consequences of what he had done, he must himself produce those very consequences! That at all events was not the way out.

At the same time the idea of confession took hold of his mind. It could not be an entirely mad idea, as many men had adopted it. Many who had been led into crime had found they could not carry its load, and had given themselves up to the police. George saw of course that he could not go so far as that, but he believed that some move in that direction might be helpful.

Then a wave of profound relief swept over him. He need not think about confession, because it was out of the question. To confess would be to incriminate Capper. Obviously under no circumstances could he do such a thing, even if it seemed the best for himself.

Now that he could not make it, he saw quite clearly that confession was the thing he needed: not a written statement before he committed suicide, but a giving up of himself to the police with the knowledge that he must pay for what he had done. But of course he couldn't do it. Apart from the disastrous consequences to himself, he couldn't do it because of Capper.

Some more days of misery dragged out their weary length, and then an event happened which increased his fears a hundredfold.

He heard at the club that the police had had a diver working in the Choole opposite “Riverview,” and it was believed that they had made some find of importance. He was able to show the necessary mystification, for the simple reason that he had no idea what the fact portended. But his feeling that it spelled disaster became so strong that he simply could not resist an appeal to Capper.

Accordingly that evening he rang him up from a street booth. Capper was guarded in his language, though he conveyed clearly enough his opinion that George had committed the unpardonable sin in communicating with him. But when George mentioned the diver he changed his tune. Obviously he became deeply moved, and though he said little, he left George quaking with terror. “If they've got that it looks like the end,” Capper answered in a voice which had become hoarse. “Look out for yourself and keep away from me.”

Wondering with dismay if the blow he had so long feared was at last about to fall, George rang-off and went unhappily home.

Chapter XXI

Venom: Through Death

The car containing French, Rankin, the sergeant and the vacant seat drove on through the darkness till it reached Bursham and drew up at the police station. It was just a little past ten. They would not be delayed long. Three or four minutes would take them to Capper's house, and another three or four would make the arrest. Then Capper had only to get his coat and hat and give parting instructions to his housekeeper, and they would be off. With the prisoner they would return slowly, so as to reduce as far as possible the chance of accident, but they should reach the Birmington headquarters before midnight. The charge and search would follow and the whole unpleasant episode should be over by half-past twelve.

For technical reasons it had been decided that the actual arrest should be carried out by Rankin as representing the local force. Nothing more was to be attempted that night, but a man from the Bursham station was to be left in charge, and next day French and Rankin would return to go through Capper's effects.

Rankin disappeared into the station, while French sat on in the car, lost in thought. This was a part of his job which he absolutely loathed. The running down of a criminal was a different matter. There was the intellectual problem, the slow search for facts with which to build up and prove a theory and the excitement of the chase, all thoroughly interesting, if occasionally somewhat exasperating. But when the affair became personal, when instead of dealing with a factual jigsaw, French found himself bringing terror and despair into human eyes, he wished he was out of it. There was no use in his reminding himself that his victims had usually done the same thing to someone else and with less cause: he was always distressed by their distress.

With the local constable who was to watch the house during the night, they now ran on through half a dozen streets and pulled up at Capper's door. The town was empty: evidently the inhabitants were early people; and this street in which Capper lived was entirely deserted.

The door was opened by an elderly woman, who proved to be the housekeeper. “Yes, gentlemen, Mr. Capper's upstairs,” she told them, evidently without the slightest idea of what the call portended. “He's not engaged. Will you come up?”

With heavy, sinister steps the men passed into the hall and up the staircase. As French began to ascend he thought he heard a door close softly on the landing above, but when they reached the sitting-room Capper was in an arm-chair, reading before the fire. Beside him was a table with whisky and soda and a half-emptied glass. He put down his paper and rose to his feet as the others entered. His manner was cool and collected, and French thought he looked normal, except that his face was very pale.

“Good evening,” he said shortly. “Will you sit down and tell me what I can do for you?”

Rankin waited till the door was shut. Then all three men quietly crossed the room and got beside their victim.

“We're here on unpleasant business, Mr. Capper,” Rankin said stolidly. “I'm sorry to tell you that I have here a warrant for your arrest on a charge of being concerned in the death of the late Professor Matthew Burnaby, of ‘Riverview,' Calshort Road, Birmington, on the night of the 23rd of November last. I have to warn you that anything you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence.”

For a moment Capper remained silent and motionless, while his face grew ghastly. Then French thought he heard a slight click and an expression of pain passed over the man's features. He said quietly: “Right! I expected this. But I want to make an immediate short statement. Sit down for a moment.”

“I'm afraid this is not the time for making statements,” Rankin answered gravely. “You'll have to come along with us now. But you'll have ample opportunity later to say whatever you think right.”

Capper sat down slowly. The officers were standing close to him, not actually touching him, but ready to stop any slightest movement of escape or suicide. He shook his head firmly. “I'll make it now, while I can,” he declared, with great resolution. “Don't be a set of fools: I know I can't get away and I'm not going to try. Take this down.”

His manner was so determined that Rankin hesitated. French looked across at the inspector, while a dreadful misgiving formed in his mind. “Let him say what he wants to,” he advised urgently.

Rankin shrugged. “As you will, sir,” he agreed.

Capper immediately signed to the sergeant to write and began to speak.

“While I am still able,” he began, confirming French's fear, “I wish to confess to the murder of my uncle, Professor Burnaby. No,” he hurried on, as Rankin would have stopped him, “I'm quite determined to do it. I was short of money and I killed him with snake poison, administered through mechanical fangs. I put a special door handle on the gate of the footpath to ‘Riverview,' and when he gripped the handle the fangs shot out and pierced his hand. I had wanted to kill him for a long time and I had made copies of his keys for the Zoo. With these I stole the snake and—”

Capper paused and an expression of pain once again crossed his face. He gazed straight in front of him in a helpless sort of way, then appeared to make a great effort.

“I extracted the venom and—then drowned—the snake,” he went on, speaking as if with difficulty. Then he lowered his head. For some moments he sat motionless, then crumpled down in his chair. Only for the support of the officers, he would have fallen forward on the floor.

They laid him on his back on the rug while French and Rankin hastily administered such first aid as was possible, and the local constable telephoned feverishly for medical help. But nothing they could do was of any avail. He gradually grew weaker, and by the time the doctor hurried in he was only semiconscious. Rapidly he sank, and after a little time he was dead.

French and Rankin exchanged gloomy glances.

“He must have known what was coming to him,” French said shortly. “Who tipped him the office?”

Rankin shook his head helplessly. “No one knew.
No one
except ourselves.”

“He's heard about the diver,” French suggested. He frowned, then went on: “This is a nice thing for you and me. It'll take some explaining.”

Rankin did not answer and he went on. “We needn't worry about it now.” His manner changed and he swung round to the doctor. “What did he die of, doctor?”

For answer the doctor pointed to Capper's left hand, which was tightly clenched. “I can see no cause so far,” he answered, “but that hand looks swollen. I can't open it without using force.”

“Use force then,” French said, shortly.

The doctor bent down and presently the locked fingers relaxed. A spheroid about the size and shape of a bantam's egg rolled out of the limp hand.

“Don't touch it,” French cried sharply as the doctor made to pick it up. “I know how it works.”

French carefully lifted and examined the little ball. It contained, as he had supposed, a mechanism similar to that of the door handle. Capper had obviously made it when he was making the handle, as a precaution against disaster. Doubtless he had been told about the diver, and realised that the police must be on his track. When he had heard the ring he at once suspected that his time had come and had gone for the ball, grasping it in his left palm. There he could hold it without attracting attention. If the interview went well, no harm was done, but if he saw that disaster was inevitable, he had only to squeeze the ball, and the trigger and spring and venom would do the rest.

French's chagrin was profound, even greater, he imagined, than Rankin's. He, French, was the senior officer, and though technically the local man was making the arrest, blame for what had happened would undoubtedly fall on the superior. The episode was going to mean a very considerable loss of prestige, as well as a heavy blow to his pride. It would avail him little to have solved the mystery and identified the guilty man, if he had immediately let him slip through his fingers. It was a bad business, a very bad business, and it would be a long time before he could live it down.

“Well,” he said shortly, to Rankin, “will you get on with it? Ring up the local station, tell them to bring their own doctor, and all that.”

He sat in Capper's arm-chair and gave himself over to bitter thought, while Rankin busied himself with the routine operations which had become needful. So this was the end of his case. He would go back to Sir Mortimer Ellison and the Yard, having vindicated himself on all major issues, and yet having spoilt the whole thing by a failure in detail. He had allowed himself to be duped like the veriest beginner. As he had told Rankin, it would take a lot of explaining and a lot of living down.

It was true, of course, that neither he nor Rankin had actually been to blame. The ball had obviously been made for a considerable time. Almost certainly it had been constructed at the same time as the handle, and both had been charged with the venom together. Capper had heard them coming in and had then and there, before they had reached the top of the stairs, grasped it in his hand. He was thus in a position to kill himself at any moment, and without attracting attention. Even if French had deduced what the man was going to do, he could not have prevented him. Before he could have taken a single step across the room, Capper could have closed his hand, and once he did that he was as good as dead.

But the fact that French hadn't been to blame wouldn't help him. He might avoid censure, but his failure would remain.

He wondered how soon he would get back to town. Probably the inquest would be next day. Then there would be some squaring up to be done, putting the proofs of Capper's guilt on paper and leaving all tidy. Three or four days should see him once more at the Yard: starting to live the affair down.

Then suddenly, with a shock, he remembered a fact which in the upset of the moment he had overlooked. The case was not over! Capper had not stolen the snake!

“Rankin!” French called sharply.

The young man at the moment was engaged in laboriously taking down the doctor's statement, but he excused himself and came over. French drew him into a corner.

“Didn't Capper tell you he was in London on the night the snake was stolen?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” Rankin answered, in his smart, competent way. Then the true import of the question struck him and he stopped and stared helplessly at French.

“You checked up on the alibi?” French went on, tensely.

Rankin gulped. “Yes, sir,” he said, with a noticeable absence of his usual precision. “I called on the solicitor he had been with and saw the manager of the hotel he had stayed at.”

“And you were satisfied?”

“Absolutely, sir.”

Capper's last statement must therefore have been an attempt to save his accomplice. Excitement was once again rising in French's mind. He repressed it carefully. “You see what that means?” he demanded. Then, without waiting for a reply, he went on: “Never mind; keep it to yourself for the present. Finish up with that doctor. We'll get away as soon as we can. Then we'll come out in the morning and with the place to ourselves we'll have a proper search through the man's papers. Your warrant will cover that.”

A local inspector had arrived, and while the matter of the suicide was handed over to him French said that, to square up the original case, he would have to go through the man's effects next day. In the meantime would the officer please see that the place was guarded continuously.

It was a rejuvenated French that drove back next morning to Bursham. He had—through no fault of his own—come a cropper on the previous night, but the case wasn't ended. He now had the opportunity to retrieve his misfortune. The capture of the accomplice would go far towards wiping out the loss of the principal. He must be particularly careful this time, so as to run no risk of a second disaster.

He wondered if he should have gone more deeply into the matter of the accomplice, because, of course, he had known that there must have been an accomplice. But he had been so fully occupied in proving Capper's guilt, that he had not had time for more. Concentration on the accomplice would have been the next step in any case. He saw that he had not been to blame.

The search of Capper's effects was soon in progress, and before lunch-time French had found enough to assure him that at last he had reached the full truth of the affair. First, he had learnt that Capper had been extremely hard up. In his desk was a private account book which showed that for years he had been gambling on the Stock Exchange. The amount of the sums he had staked—and usually lost—amazed French. French could not believe it had all come out of the practice. In this alone he believed that there was an entirely adequate motive for the crime.

His next discovery was not so immediately promising, but it led to an even more satisfactory conclusion. Another stack of papers showed that Capper had been solicitor to a Miss Lucy Pentland, and when French learned who this lady was, he realised that he need go no further. Here was a connection, hitherto unsuspected, with the Zoo, and more than that, with the one member of its staff who could most easily have stolen the snake! French was thrilled, and dropped everything to follow up this line of research. The correspondence shewed, first, that though Capper had been employed by George on Miss Pentland's death, he had not yet applied for probate. Whether or not this was suspicious, French didn't know, but when at last he learnt that Capper had held the deceased's securities, he felt like a ship master when in tricky waters a fog suddenly lifts.

The next enquiry was obvious. The securities must be produced and checked over. The office records showed that these were not in the bank, but in a safe deposit in Birmington. With Capper's keys French and Rankin returned to the city.

Then suspicion became certainty. Not a single one of the securities remained, and French's examination of the deceased's books showed that they had been sold at various times during the previous ten years.