Comes a Stranger (34 page)

“You think that's me?” said Miss Perkins. “Suppose it is, can't you change your name if you want to?”

“Certainly,” agreed the Major. “A change of name is, however, sometimes matter for suspicion.”

“Suspicion?” repeated Miss Perkins. She was evidently a little nervous now. She was fiddling with her handbag, drawing the zip fastener to and fro. Her manner was still quite different from that she ordinarily showed. “Suspicion? what about?”

“Of complicity in or knowledge of recent events,” answered the Major. “You understand I am questioning you in connection with these murders; that anything you say will be used in evidence, if necessary; and that, if you prefer, and it would probably be wise, you need answer no questions till you have received legal assistance?”

Miss Perkins shook her head gently.

“Yes, but I don't think I do understand at all,” she said. “Do you mean you suspect me of shooting poor Mr. Nat Kayne? Why should I? He was always ever so nice. I was dreadfully sorry when I heard. Besides Mrs. Somerville can tell you I was talking to her. We were both in her kitchen at ten o'clock when it happened.”

“I am not satisfied on that point,” Major Harley said. “Sergeant Owen has been making inquiries. Mrs. Payne thinks it was much later when Mrs. Somerville left that night. Mrs. Payne has no wireless, Mrs. Somerville seems to judge times entirely by the wireless programme, and to set her clock by it. It is easy to alter the hands of a clock and if that were done that night, Mrs. Somerville may be entirely mistaken about the time.”

“Oh, you are Clever,” said Miss Perkins, dropping back into the manner that was familiar to them. She even produced her characteristic giggle. “So is Sergeant Owen, awfully Clever. But then everyone says so, don't they? Oh, you don't really think it was me shot poor Sir William too, do you?”

“We notice there is no alibi for you,” Major Harley said. “We notice two hand towels were missed that night by Mrs. Somerville and that an imprint in a flower bed near the window of Sir William's window was made apparently by a foot round which something, it might be a towel, had been wrapped. A search will be made for the weapon used, a small two-two automatic.”

“Oh, yes,” said Miss Perkins, and took her handkerchief from her handbag and wiped her eyes and her lips. “Oh, yes,” she said again. “I suppose if you find it, you will be Quite Sure. Oh, and then there's poor Mr. Broast, too. It's quite a List, isn't it?”

“Several people, including yourself,” Major Harley answered slowly, “had access to the strychnine kept in the basement here. Our information is that you were in the library when the maid came at half past four to take away the empty tea cups. In your statement you say you did not enter the library after taking Mr. Broast his tea until five o'clock. I must ask you to accompany us to the police station. You will be wise to obtain legal assistance before saying anything further. Will you please let me have your handbag?”

“Oh, no, I Couldn't,” she answered at once. “I've got Everything in it.”

“I must insist,” the Major said.

“Oh, I see,” she exclaimed, pulling the zip fastener to and fro. “You think if I had strychnine in it, tiny traces of it may be there still?”

“That is a question for the experts,” Major Harley said. “Examination will be necessary.”

“What I'm wearing, too?” she asked. “Perhaps you think some of it may have stuck to my clothes or my gloves?”

“You were wearing gloves?” the Major asked. “Yes, I think your clothing will have to be examined, too. May I have your handbag, please?”

“Oh, dear,” Miss Perkins said, “what a lot of things you have thought of—so Clever of you. I daresay now the tiniest little grain of strychnine… So Clever. I expect it's Mr. Owen really. Miss Farrar said he was, and so I thought perhaps he might be. Oh, there's another murder, too, you haven't said a word about—the murder of whoever it was you found buried up there by the trees, and nothing left of her but only bones—bones, a skull, and nothing more.”

“We think perhaps it was your mother buried there,” the Major said gently.

“Oh, well,” she said. “Now, then. Well?”

“However that may be,” Major Harley said, “these other murders must be accounted for. One murder is no excuse for others.”

She drew back the zip fastener of her handbag again and replaced her handkerchief. She appeared to be fumbling for something. There came into Bobby's mind an oddly clear memory of how once before, when he was questioning her, she had fidgeted with the zip fastening of her handbag. Her look, her manner, had been the same—oddly the same. It crossed his mind that possibly it was the same thing she was feeling for, both now and then. The heavy writing table was between them or he would have tried to take the bag from her. She said:

“I do think it's so Silly. I mean, blaming it all on poor little me. Don't you think so? I mean, I do think it's Silly. Don't you? I mean, have I got to go with you?”

“It will be my duty to detain you,” the Major answered. “You will be charged with the murder of Nathaniel Kayne, with the murder of Sir William Winders, in both cases by shooting, with the murder of Basil Royston Oast, commonly known as Basil Broast, by the administration of poison.”

“Oh, I'm so sorry,” said Miss Perkins, and finding at last what she fumbled for in her handbag she drew out a small point twenty-two automatic and levelled it at them and began to fire.

It was so sudden, so unexpected, that for the fraction of a second they remained all three perfectly still, motionless targets. Bobby felt a blow over his heart. He found afterwards a bullet embedded in his notebook. Killick instinctively flung up his hand to guard himself. A bullet that otherwise would have passed harmlessly by, struck his wrist watch and was deflected upwards. Major Harley felt one bullet stir his hair, like the touch of a caressing hand. Yet another passed between his coat and arm, and a fifth cut the string by which the ‘No Smoking' placard was suspended, so that it hung awry.

Then it was all over before they had well realized it had begun. Between them and Miss Perkins was the heavy writing table at which she worked. She was still firing at them from her deadly little automatic as she stepped back to the inner door, the one admitting to the library proper. She opened it and passed through, slamming and locking it behind her.

The three men stood and looked at each other, a trifle dazed by the storming death through which they had just passed, though unharmed. Killick was swearing to himself in a soft monotone as he nursed his damaged wrist and examined his broken watch. Major Harley, with an air of almost ludicrous surprise, said:

“Well, now then.”

For the moment none of them remembered that Miss Kayne had last been seen making her way hither, and that now presumably she, too, was within the library, behind that locked door. Killick suddenly ran to the door and shook it with some vague idea of forcing it open. The air was full of the acrid smell of powder. There was another smell, too, but fainter, and one they were for the moment too confused and excited to pay much attention to. Killick, still shaking the door, said:

“It's locked, she's locked it.”

“Solid bit of work,” said the Major. “Fireproof. Strong. What's next?”

“I think there should be a spare key somewhere, sir,” Bobby said.

“See if you can find it, look sharp,” the Major said. He added, still with his air of surprise: “Well, now, you know, I never expected that.” Bobby was already out in the corridor. The Major called after him: “Send someone round to watch the windows in case she tries to get away there.”

“Yes, sir,” said Bobby, and ran on.

“Has she any more ammunition?” Killick said. “It was a seven shooter—even if she hasn't another clip, she'll have a shot or two left.”

“What about Miss Kayne, where is she?” Major Harley asked, suddenly remembering. Then he said: “Yes, one or two shots left, I think—nasty things at close quarters, those two-twos. Lucky she missed us. I hope Owen gets that key quick.”

Bobby had, in fact, secured it at once from the glass case in the hall where it and others hung. As he took it down he heard his name called, and saw behind him Mr. Adams who had walked in by the open and unattended front door, since Briggs was in no state to carry out his accustomed duties.

“Is it true Broast has killed himself?” Adams asked quickly. “If it is, I must see the Mandeville leaves at once.”

“Why? do you think they are fakes?” Bobby asked.

“No,” answered Adams, “not these, not the ones here, the ones he sold. He kept the genuine and then forged copies he sold. He was doing that all the time. Half the things he sold, autographed copies and all, were forged, and he used the money he made like that to buy genuine. He filled other libraries with forgeries that he might have genuine himself for his own. Old Kayne started it and Broast carried on.”

“If you had told us that before—” Bobby said angrily.

“How could I when I wasn't sure?” Adams retorted. “I wasn't going to risk ruining myself and my firm and my clients, too. I kept to my instructions.”

“Sergeant, sergeant,” roared the Major's voice.

“Yes, sir,” answered Bobby, recalled to a sense of the urgency of the position.

He went back at a run, the key in his hand. Adams followed. Major Harley was standing in the doorway of the ante-room with his hand outstretched. Bobby gave him the key. The Major ran across to the inner door and fitted the key to the lock. Adams said:

“What's burning? there's something burning.”

“It's powder, young lady doing pistol practice,” grumbled Killick, looking ruefully at his wrist.

“There's something burning, too,” Bobby said.

Major Harley threw open the door of the library. A trail of smoke issued, and within they saw a great column rising to the roof, shot through by the dull glow of flame.

“Good God, it's on fire,” shouted the Major. “Get help—quick. Where are the women?”

Killick rushed away to give the alarm. Adams stood still. The Major, Bobby following him, ran forward. Smoke eddied round them. They could feel the heat of the flames. Under the impact of the fresh current of air from the open doors, the central column of smoke changed to a pillar of fire, licking even the roof, then died down again into black, swirling, suffocating smoke. An armful of books, a shower of books, came flying through the air, thrown from above. The whole air became full of books, descending in a kind of heavy hail, as though the heavens rained books. They looked up. On the iron gallery above they saw a heavy, gross, running, maniacal figure: Miss Kayne, running at speed along that narrow iron gallery, and as she ran plucking books from the shelves at her side and hurling them down to feed the growing, leaping flames that burned beneath, flames that already leaped to reach the roof, that curled round and about the projecting wooden bookcases, that showed, too, for one clear instant, the glowing colours of the
Glastonbury Psalter
before wrapping it in a fiercer light.

Instinctively Bobby made a movement to save that lovely relic of an age when men might still make beauty without thinking of its market value, but Major Harley stopped him.

“You go this way, I'll go that, we must catch her,” he said, and even as he spoke a heavy volume, a product of the Kelmscott Press, the
Chaucer
, perhaps the most splendid book ever printed in England, came crashing down and struck him on one shoulder and sent him spinning and sprawling. Another volume, less heavy though, Bobby warded off with his hands, or it would have caught him on the head. Another and another followed, and they saw Miss Kayne looking down at them from above, ringed round with smoke and fire.

She vanished. The Major scrambled to his feet.

“Catch her, stop her,” he repeated, “I'll go this way, you go that”; and an enormous iron-clapsed ‘Breeches' Bible fell heavily between them, missing them by inches.

Then began the strangest, weirdest chase. Up the iron, spiral stairs, along the iron galleries, raced Bobby, ran Major Harley. Before them, agile and swift, for all her enormous bulk; light on her feet, it seemed, as any girl, raced Miss Kayne, still plucking as she fled books from the shelves to hurl down to feed the increasing flames beneath. She ran, she leaped as though her frantic spirit took no heed of the gross burden of her flesh. At one moment when Bobby was close behind she somehow swung down by an iron support from the upper gallery to the lower, and when next he saw her through the swirling smoke, through the flames so richly fed that now by their own force they were licking up the serried ranks of books below, shelf after shelf, book after book, bursting into flames, opening their leaves in fire as rosebuds into beauty, she had climbed back into a third yet higher gallery that ran across the lower end of the library hall.

For one passing instant he had this glimpse of her. Then she was running again, the wreathing smoke concealing her, the only evidence of her presence fresh showers of books that came flying down as she swept whole shelves clean and tossed the contents to the floor.

Smoke-grimed, choking, half blinded, Bobby still pursued, the Major still ran and climbed from gallery to gallery and back once more. In the doorway below Mr. Adams watched despairingly. He was hugging in his arms the great Kelmscott
Chaucer
he had run forward to pick up after it had felled the Major, and then had retreated again to the doorway. Above Miss Kayne still darted here and there, obese and quick as a darting bird, and only once did they hear her speak when she cried with a great voice:

“Burning, burning, burning, it'll do no more harm.”

Now they saw her once more upon the uppermost of the three end galleries, whither she had fled again with that incredible speed, that strange intensity of speed which seemed to make nothing of her gross and heavy body, of her encumbering flesh now so subdued to the wild energy of will and spirit that possessed her. The Major shouted to Bobby: