Hell! said the Duchess by Michael Arlen

Author:Michael Arlen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Valancourt Books
Published: 2014-08-05T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

In Basil Icelin’s room at Scotland Yard the two men sat talking until late that night. They did not conceal from one another that they were completely flummoxed. Every now and then Superintendent Crust or a sub­ordinate would come in with papers relating to one or other of the Jane the Ripper murders.

Colonel Wingless had detailed to the chief of the C.I.D. Mary’s experience with the man in Jermyn Street and also the com­panion’s supplementary narrative. Icelin carefully examined the blade with the curi­ous handle, and his opinion as to the rubber covering agreed with Wingless’s, that it had been glued on so as to give a better purchase for a woman’s slender fingers. Wingless explained that he had searched for the knife because in a case so peculiar and evil it was wise to look for the impossible and to work backwards from the impossible to the possible.

The knife had already been examined by the chemical experts, and the gist of their report was this: the blade had been cleaned, but not expertly: in all probability it had not been used for at least six weeks to two months: a spot of dried blood extracted from between the blade and the handle be­longed to the same blood-group as that of the victim of the Fulham Road Murder.

“I thought,” Wingless said, “we should get some such result as that.”

Icelin carefully shut the knife away in a narrow box, which would be labelled and placed among the exhibits of the Jane the Ripper crimes.

He said: “The murderess has now made two mistakes: the voice on the telephone: the knife in the Duchess’s room. But these mistakes are not at all helpful to us, Wing­less. Let me put it this way. They are cal­culated mistakes flung at our heads by a criminal who thinks she is strong enough to be able to laugh at us. There is an arrogance about them. The person who put this knife among the Duchess’s whatnots did not for a moment think that I should be fool enough to believe that she knew of its existence. Now why did he or she, whatever sex this fiend is, do something which he knew would not delude the police?”

“Icelin,” Wingless said, “I have come to a conclusion about that. And I am bound to tell you that this conclusion really terrifies me. Now I will give you any odds you like that within the next few days we shall find there has been a leakage to the Press and to the public about the evidence connecting the Duchess of Dove with Jane the Ripper.”

Icelin said: “I’ll not take an even bet on that.”

“I didn’t think you would. Now do you see why I say I am frightened?”

“Not quite, since you are beefy enough to prevent even the prettiest woman from cut­ting your throat.”

Wingless said: “I can tell you jokes more amusing than that, Icelin, and one is that this criminal is not really interested in cutting throats.”

“Just absent-mindedness, you mean?”

“These murders are no more than part of a plan.

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