Postman Young took a little packet from his pocket and put it on the sorting-table in front of him. It was a loose, untidy packet and held his allowance of tea, with which brown sugar lay inextricably mixed. He unfastened a coarse but spotlessly clean table-napkin and cast an appreciative glance at the three ham-sandwiches left over from his lunch. He had expected to find only two, and the gratifying miscalculation led him to open and close his lips with a series of loud, relishing smacks, which echoed and re-echoed from the iron-girdered roof of the empty hall.
He took the paper packet by one corner and let the mixture slide slowly into the willow-patterned jug at his elbow. The jug had no handle; and this, in conjunction with an apparent absence of milk, to say nothing of the flippant attitude of the kettle, which sang in lidless sympathy on the fire behind, might have suggested a sense of general incompleteness to the really cultured eye.
But by Postman Young these trivialities passed unnoticed. So long as the jug was water-tight, so long as the kettle boiled, and so long as the tea infused, he would change places with no man: even though he had spent the hours from ten till three in solitary charge of the big sorting-office, where, until five o'clock that afternoon, the noisy date-stamps were at rest from their task of blotting out His Majesty's august features with a monotonous thud-thud.
For Postman Young loved his work; and it was at his own wish that he filled the post of caretaker at the Silchester post office every other Sunday. If he forewent his Sunday leisure he found an ample compensation in the sense of rich responsibility which the duty brought him. The preparations for his tea were complete and nothing now remained but to pour the already boiling water upon the sticky mess within the crippled jug. And he turned to take the kettle from the fire.
Just then there came a sudden knocking upon the double doors at the far end of the office before which, of nights, the high-heaped vans from town and countryside discharged mud-coloured sacks.
Postman Young looked sharply up.
"Who's there?" he called.
"It's me!" said a man's voice from the courtyard without.
The caretaker put the kettle down again and walked down the sorting-office with something of a nautical lurch. He was a naval pensioner, and a fine flavour of the sea showed in his manner and speech-more especially when he was annoyed.
He unslung the bar which ran across the dull redness of the doors.
"You're just in time for a cup of tea!" he said, as he stooped to raise a perpendicular bolt and let the right-hand door swing inwards a little.
A second later he lay prostrate upon a heap of mail-bags with a wound in his forehead such as only a knuckle-duster worn on a powerful hand can deal. And the blood soaked steadily through the canvas of the bags, turning them to a curious blackness as it found its way to the rough, boarded floor beneath.
After a while, in spite of his wound and growing weakness, some strange, subconscious sense of responsibility brought him to himself; and brokenly, intermittently, then with a feather-brained, light-headed clearness, he caught at an accurate appreciation of the surroundings.
He raised himself upon the heap of mail-bags—and suddenly felt that his fingers were damp. He looked at them without surprise: that there should be blood on them seemed natural enough. Anyhow he was too tired to speculate as to its cause—and he let his head fall back again upon the dampness of the bags. They, too, were wet; but he couldn't be troubled to move: he was too tired to do more than lie still with closed eyes.
Presently he awoke suddenly, and, as it seemed, from a long sleep. He had been unconscious perhaps fifty seconds.
But then an insistent, grinding, grating sound jarred unceasingly upon his ear.
The sound meant nothing to him at first: it was only another factor in what he felt was a waking nightmare.
Then he understood.
Some one was in the registered-letter enclosure—and the dull, grating, grinding noise was the noise of a drill eating its slow, methodical way into the safe, where the registered letters were locked—and the cash.
He might have made good his escape there and then by the mail entrance, but his sense of duty numbed all else.
"I must go and—I must stop it—stop it—" sang the ceaseless drill to his aching brain.
Then he staggered to his feet. Twice he fell down in making the effort, but the third time he managed to lurch as far as the end of the sorting-tables, which begin within a yard or so of where he had fallen, and continue up to and beyond the registered-letter enclosure, at the top of the hall. Slowly and half-dazed, he groped his way along, leaving the damp imprint of his fingers to mark each stage of his tedious journey.
Within a few feet of the enclosure he paused to listen and to gain some respite for his panting breath. The enclosure was a square room contrived of woodwork and wire-netting. The woodwork ran up some five feet from the ground: then came a brief gap: then wire-netting ran some four feet above the woodwork. A small ledge projected where the woodwork ceased and before the wire-netting began. On this, during working hours, the heavy books were placed, and in them the clerks gave a signature for every registered article received.
The movements of the caretaker had been muffled by the noise of the drill, and the man at work upon the safe had not heard his slow approach. The door of the enclosure was locked. The thief had climbed over the top. To get out he must also climb. And Postman Young, dazed and shaken as he was, made up his mind what to do.
He would creep through the door which led from the sorting-hall into the public office—would raise the flap of the counter—pass through it—and, tapping upon one of the windows, would attract the notice of the policeman, who, as he knew, should be on point duty in the big square which the post office faced.
He must do that—just that—and he must do it quickly. Everything depended on him. With a supreme effort of will he crept, on tip-toe and unsupported, across the gap between the end of the sorting-tables and the door which led into the public office. But the door-handle creaked harshly under his hand that trembled.
The next sound was the creak and crack of the woodwork that framed the criss-cross wires of the registered-letter enclosure. The thief was climbing over, was coming at him. Postman Young, with death at his heels, made a despairing plunge through the door and under the counter-flap into the octagonal hall, fringed with partitioned spaces for the writing of telegrams.
And his nail-studded boots shrieked despairingly in their swift passage across the stone-slabbed floor.
He reached the windows—but the blinds were lowered! There was no time to pull them up; and he tugged at one of them, thinking to tear it from its roller or to dislodge the roller from its catch and bring it tumbling down. But the thick, yellow canvas was too stout for him and the roller too high for his poor, weak tugging to endanger it.
So, since all hope was gone, he turned to face his pursuer.
From the very outset of the fight the issue was certain. Slowly, but with a cruel sureness, Postman Young, battered, bruised, and bleeding, was dragged through the counter-flap and back into the sorting-office.
There he made one last despairing effort. With a seaman's wrestling trick he crooked his leg within his adversary's, and, setting out all the little strength that stayed with him, threw the thief heavily to the floor. Then he broke away into the postmaster's room and tried to lock the door. Once safely within, there was another door leading into a stone corridor, which, in its turn, led to a private entrance, and by that the caretaker could have won his way out and have called to the policeman in the big square before the office.
But the burglar was upon him before he was well into the room.
As the caretaker felt the hot breath on his face he suddenly stooped and his pursuer, coming with speed unchecked, was shot not directly over his head but well forward to his left-hand side. It was only a temporary success. Postman Young's strength had run from him with his blood; he leaned against the postmaster's flat-topped pedestal table, drawing difficult breath, while the burglar picked himself from the fender and with eyes that saw blood—everywhere blood—advanced towards him, a heavy poker uplifted in readiness to strike.
And the other, seeing certain death at hand, went to meet it, rather than let it come to him.
The pair closed, and the nearness of the caretaker to his adversary made the poker's blows less deadly than the will of him who held it. But the strength of the victim suddenly was not any more. He was a puppet now in his adversary's hands. Upon him, held at arm's length by the collar of his uniform coat, the poker came down again and again until the presses and pigeon-holes that hid the walls of the room were splashed and blotched with spurting blood. At last one blow, falling straighter and truer than the rest, crashed through the caretaker's forehead, then down into the eye-ball beneath. Postman Young became a dead weight upon the hand which held him.
The burglar relaxed his hold and the caretaker fell heavily to the floor. He had found the responsibility that he loved, and, finding it, had died to prove that he was worthy of it.
The door shut with a clang upon the final battle-ground, and the burglar returned to his task of forcing the safe. When that was done he picked up the green registered letter-bag which lay in the enclosure and went back to the post- master's room. There—who knows what sense of the decencies of death came to him in that hour?—he drew the legs of the dead man to their full length, set the arms straight and stiff beside the body and put the green bag across the—where the face had been. He took off his own blood-bespattered linen collar and cleaned his hands at the little departmental washhand-stand under the window. He buttoned up his coat and put the linen collar into his pocket. After that he walked carelessly down the sorting-hall, took a precautionary glance through the swing doors by which he had come in, and composedly went out into the hot sunshine of the August afternoon.
A few minutes before five, Mr. Thomas Escott, sorting clerk and telegraphist, stepped briskly through the Silchester streets on his way to the post office. He had been walking out that afternoon with the girl of the moment and his mind was still happy at the thought of her. So he whistled cheerfully as he turned into the courtyard of the post office.
When he reached the main entrance of the sorting-hall, through which the staff of sorters had the right of way, he was somewhat taken aback to find the swing doors unlocked and that one of them was slightly ajar. But it was just upon five o'clock, and no doubt the caretaker was giving the building a breath of air before going home. So he pushed the doors wide open and walked in.
The first thing to catch his eye was the curious stain which almost covered the heap of mail-bags near the entrance; and he stirred the black sugariness with an inquisitive cane. The smell seemed familiar, too; and yet he failed to determine its origin. Probably some parcel, containing jam or fruit, had got broken in transit and had been placed, temporarily, on the mail-bags. He went on his jaunty way towards the retiring-room on the left-hand side.
Half-way up the big hall, a feeling suddenly caught him that something was wrong, and a nervous tremor conquered and held his spine as he realised the probable nature of the liquid which had covered the mail-bags. At every step signs of a recent struggle became more apparent; the wire-netting of the enclosure was twisted and bent; the shoulder of one of the sorting-boards was splintered and torn, and the door which led into the postmaster's room was splashed-and a child could have told what it was splashed with.
He turned the handle and looked in. There he saw the body of the caretaker, stark and stiff, as though laid out for burial. And he turned and ran—ran for dear life-through the sorting-office, out into the street, and on to the police station in the town-hall buildings across the square.
When the inspector in charge had heard his breathless tale he rang the hand-bell on his table twice, and then, after a pause, rang it three times. It was answered almost immediately by the appearance of two men—one middle-aged and self-reliant, with the confident air of a successful commercial traveller, the other in the early thirties, a little over-anxious and thin of face.
"Carnaby!" began the inspector—and Escott realised that he was in the presence of the detective whose recent arrest of an armed lunatic had made all England ring with his courageous deed—"Carnaby, it seems that a murder has been committed at the post office. Take Birkett with you and make what inquiry you can. This young man"—he indicated Escott as he spoke—"will accompany you and will tell you his story as you go. Then come back and report—or if you want additional help send for it."
The three set out across the square towards the post office. Escott tried to tell his companions, as they went, what they might expect—the words did not come easily somehow.
But even the detectives were staggered at the sight which met them on their arrival. Carnaby was not a man to be squeamish or to indulge in unnecessary sentiment: yet when he lifted the green bag from the dead caretaker's face he let it fall again very quickly.
"My God!" he said. "The brute shall swing for this as sure as I'm a living man!"
The two detectives, note-book in hand, went through the sorting-hall. Escott, who answered as well as he could the sharp, searching questions which they put to him from time to time, could see that Carnaby was, in his own mind, reconstructing the incidents of the afternoon. He seemed to miss nothing; no detail was too trivial; no thread too slender; and no new discovery either dejected or elated him. At last his theory found an almost unconscious outlet.
"Why did he open the door?" he asked himself aloud. "And why was it necessary to kill him when to have knocked him senseless would have served an ordinary burglar's purpose?"
His colleague's eyes flashed in sympathetic agreement. The same thoughts had been uppermost in his mind, too.
Carnaby turned slowly round and walked towards the enclosure. It was after six and the sorting-hall had begun to fill with sorters and postmen: already a mail-cart had come in with its kharki load. The report of the caretaker's death was spreading in the town. Postmen, leaving the post office to make collections, had met and told other postmen; and round the detectives there hung a crowd of wondering officials some in uniform, some in mufti, all anxious to impart useless information and full of wholly unprofitable efforts to assist.
Carnaby looked up at the roof as if in expectation of some heaven-sent clue. Then his eyes travelled slowly round the encircling group with affected or real dreaminess.
"Bring me a sponge!" he said at last.
Half-a-dozen postmen ransacked the retiring-rooms and returned full of excuses. There was not such a thing as a sponge on the premises. But one of them, less agitated than his fellows, brought a rag which he held out to the detective.
"Thank you!" said Carnaby, with a half-regretful start, as if he had been disturbed from some attractive dream.
Then he nodded towards his colleague. "Come along, Birkett!" he said.
And he led the way towards the postmaster's room.
Birkett followed, a little critical of the way in which his superior was conducting the case. It was all so unlike Carnaby's methods, this publicity, and now a crowd of officials was going to be allowed to see the body and perhaps trample out a tell-tale clue. But strict obedience was one of the qualities which had led Carnaby to single him out from the ruck—and he had his proper ambitions. So he held a well-disciplined tongue.
Carnaby poured a little water into the blood-stained basin and rinsed it out. Then he dipped the rag in cold water and carefully, almost kindly, wiped the caretaker's face and forehead. As he passed the rag over the dead man's mouth a hopeful light came into his eyes.
"Open the window!" he said sharply. "It's stifling hot in here!"
And as a dozen men turned in a body to do one man's work, he slipped his left hand under the covering rag and pulled something from the caretaker's upper jaw. It was a portion of a sleeve-link which had become fixed to a sharp eye-tooth by the metal ring which still adhered to it. On the sleeve-link itself was a tiny piece of white and black flannel, a portion of the button-hole of a shirt.
Carnaby thrust the sleeve-link into his waistcoat pocket and let his eye rove round the splashed papers in the pigeon-holes above his head. He looked at the ceiling, as he had but a little while before looked at the roof of the sorting-hall. And now, as then, his eye with seeming vagueness lighted in turn upon every one of the faces which surrounded him.
Then he turned to a tall sorter in white shirt-sleeves and black apron at his right-hand side.
"Reach me down that packet of papers, please!" he suavely instructed, as he indicated a particular pigeon-hole. "The one on the right!" he explained.
The sorter, a little surprised, did as he was told. And the detective took advantage of the diversion to make a sign to Birkett—a sign which meant that he must hold himself in readiness for immediate action at any moment now.
"Thank you!" said Carnaby pleasantly, putting out his hand for the papers.
He ran through them as if in search of something. Then he threw out an exclamation of disgust.
"Bother!" he exclaimed. "These are no help to me!"
And he walked to the other side of the room, where a big, burly, bull-necked postman with a collection-bag slung over his shoulders was making a successful effort to manœuvre his way through the throng. Carnaby looked up at a nest of pigeon-holes which stood close to the door, and made a vain attempt to reach a bundle of papers down.
Then he turned to the big postman whose passage through the doorway he himself blocked. "You're the tallest man here," he said. "Kindly reach me down that bundle on the right."
The man stepped forward and put up his hand. He was half a foot taller than the detective, but even he failed to reach the papers at first.
Carnaby gave a couple of careless taps upon the pocket at the side of his coat and glanced meaningly at Birkett. Birkett nodded. He understood now-and he cursed himself for his previous obtuseness.
"Try again," said Carnaby to the postman. "You'll reach 'em on tip-toe."
The man made another effort, touched the projecting papers with his middle finger and tipped them into his waiting grasp as they fell.
"Here you are, sir!" he said, as he held out the dusty packet, girdled with faded tape.
And his coat, wrinkling upon his outstretched arm, showed Carnaby all that he had hoped to see. The detective's left hand shot out like a flash and gripped not the packet but the projecting forearm. His other hand caught the postman's wrist. The palms were jarred together with sudden violence and the expectant Birkett slipped on the handcuffs at precisely the right moment. But as they fastened together Carnaby lost his hold.
The fellow stepped back, raised his handcuffs above his head and brought them savagely down again within an inch of Birkett's head. But this was his last fling. For he was borne to the ground by sheer weight of oncoming numbers, so that he lay prone but still struggling in the doorway of the postmaster's room.
Carnaby drew a toothpick from his ticket pocket, put it in the corner of his mouth and chewed it reflectively. Then he remembered Escott and turned to him.
"Go to the station!" he said. " Ask for three constables and a cab!"
Escott did as he was told. Carnaby looked down at the burly figure in the doorway. The fellow was quiet enough now but he glared vindictively at the man to whom he owed his capture.
Carnaby understood the look and appreciated it.
"I know you, James Thomson !" he said. "I was in court ten years ago when you got hard labour and the cat for robbery with violence at Leicester. I've a good memory for faces, my lad! I suppose you enlisted under a false name and got into the post office as a reservist. Then you made friends with the caretaker—or he wouldn't have let you in. And you had to kill him, because he knew you too well. But you'll swing for this little job, for certain!"
The man on the floor lay sullen and silent. The detective took out his note-book and began to write.
Presently Escott came back and with him came the three policemen, as well as the inspector.
Thomson went quietly enough through the postmaster's private entrance where the cab was waiting. Carnaby, Birkett, and the inspector got inside with their prisoner: one policeman climbed up beside the driver and the other two followed the cab on foot.
At the police station twenty bank-notes and half-a-dozen torn envelopes were found in the prisoner's pockets. And the postmaster was able to identify some of the notes as part of the official cash.
Later on the same night the two detectives walked into a bar in the neighbourhood of the police station and called for drinks.
Birkett sat looking at Carnaby for a while. Then, under the mellowing influence of the whisky, he found tongue.
"Gad ! Mr. Carnaby, sir, you're d—d smart!" he said.
Carnaby smiled in frank appreciation of the compliment and of his own abilities. Clearly Carnaby spotted something up near the ceiling that told him that the criminal was tall. I wish that he had explained to Birkett--and the reader--what that clue was. Perhaps simply the fact that the criminal could climb over the enclosure wall? Then he tapped his favourite pupil affectionately on the back.
"Not a bit, my boy!" he said, " not a bit. Not half so smart as you'll be some day if you'll only study my methods and use... ."
He broke off suddenly, pulled a coin from his pocket and spun it on the table to attract the barman's attention.
"Use what?" asked Birkett insistently.
"Common sense!" came the great man's answer. "A ha'porth of common sense and a farthing's worth of imagination!"
Annotation by Nina Zumel