got to her feet, stood staring down at him. ‘Oh, my God—Mr Hawke! You’d rather I had been killed. Killed, murdered, slaughtered—if it would keep them believing in your powers!’
‘Oh, no!’ he cried out. ‘No, no!’ And he fell on his knees, caught at her hand, holding it against his worn face, clammy and cold. ‘Of course I wouldn’t sacrifice one hair of your head, Delphine!’ And yet … ‘It means so much to me. I have the gift, you know that: it’s so terrible to me that nobody will believe. Last night—the ’phone call: that was a genuine experience, I swear to you that it was. And now, if I’m proved wrong—’
She slid away her hand, stepped back, looking down at him. The horror seemed to fade away from her face, pity took its place. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘You’re safe. He did kill again last night.’
Now it was Superintendent Tomm’s turn to call on Joseph Hawke. ‘This time you weren’t quite so bang on. A girl was killed, yes. In her home, yes. But a man was killed too, the boy friend, visiting. You didn’t foresee that?’
‘Well, but …’ He said quickly: ‘That would be fortuitous. He meant to kill a girl—well, he meant to kill Delphine. But the man appeared, he had to kill him too.’
‘You’re still offering this as a psychic revelation?’ said the Superintendent, curiously.
‘I was in trance. I have these—well, what you would call dreams, very troubled, I wake up exhausted as though—’
‘As though you’d been walking in your sleep, perhaps?’
‘In this case as though I’d had the telephone call. A psychic revelation: yes, just the right phrase. How else could I have known the code word?’
‘You had a genuine ’phone call from No Face and he mentioned it?’
He fell back in despair. ‘You’ll never believe me, will you? No one will ever recognise my powers. Did he ring me, those earlier times, and describe himself to me? Did he ring and tell me that he has red hair? Did he ring and give me his name?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Superintendent Tomm. ‘You tell me.’
He fought against the old inevitable rise of hysteria. ‘Are you suggesting that I’m nothing but a fraud?’
‘Well, as to that—people do talk, you know.’
‘Oh, yes, I’m sure. Dismissed assistants. Who would listen to them?’
‘I would. Because you see, we have three choices. If, as you insist, you’ve had no actual ’phone calls—and if, as they insist, you have no true psychic powers—then there’s only one way that you would know as much as you do about this murderer.’
‘You mean—? Oh, my God!’ Fear rose up, choking him, darting questions scuttled about in his mind like rats. ‘You think I’m him? You believe I’m the killer? You suspected it once before …’
‘And you immediately came across with a ‘proof’ of your innocence. You gave us his name.’
‘Well, there you are then!’
‘But after all, that could have been yourself ringing up and confirming yourself.’
‘How could I, if I didn’t know the code word?’
‘Ah, but, Mr Hawke,’ said Superintendent Tomm, ‘what does that make you, if you did?’
He sat for a long time saying nothing, and slowly the hysteria ebbed away, leaving his mind cold and clear. He said at last, slowly: ‘If I tell you something, will you swear—?’
‘I’ll swear to nothing. But I won’t unnecessarily give away your secrets.’
‘Well, then. I see now that I have to convince you that I am not No Face; whatever conclusion you in the end might come to—if such a rumour got about—God help me! So I must tell you. I saw him. Not in the crystal—I saw him in a church. I noticed this man go into the confessional box. He was there a long time and when he came out he flung himself down on his knees and buried his face in his hands. And the priest came out of the box and went away quickly and he was as pale as death. I followed, I saw the priest kneeling out of sight of the rest, before a side-altar, with his hands clasped, looking up at the crucifix, tears pouring down his face. I knew then that he had heard something terrible, but he couldn’t break the seal of the confessional, he was powerless to do anything about it. And there was a mass murderer abroad.
‘I went back down the aisle. I touched the shoulder of the kneeling man and spoke some name. He shook me off, muttering, “No, no. Go away!” I gave him a sort of apologetic pat on the head and said, “Sorry, mate!—I thought you were someone I knew!” But in those two moments—we’re trained in these tricks, Superintendent, that’s how we get our information—I’d flicked the handkerchief out of his breast pocket and seen the name printed across the corner; and I’d gently shuffled back the nylon wig and got a glimpse of the red hair underneath. And that’s all there was to it.’ He gave a small, despairing shrug. ‘So now you know. But at least it proves that to know what I knew about him, I didn’t have to be the killer.’ He shrugged again. ‘I suppose if, after that, I swear to you that I do sometimes exercise the true psychic gift, you will simply think me a fool.’
‘A fool?’ said the Superintendent. ‘No, no, on the contrary. I think you are a very clever man.’ He fell to musing upon it. ‘A very, very, very clever man,’ he said.
Delphine appeared in the doorway. ‘Oh—I’m sorry—’
‘No, no, Miss Grey. It was really you I came to see. This may be just a little to your comfort. After you’d left this morning, we had one of his calls. Out of the usual horror emerged the fact that he was gloating over the two people murdered last night. In his childhood, he’d witnessed a double killing—a fight between his parents. With knives—so one up to you, Mr Hawke, you always suggested something of the kind!—and recently, I suppose, something triggered off the reaction. He has a craving, like a drug, for what he calls the smell of death.’
‘Yes—he said that to Mr Hawke, during last night’s séance.’
The Superintendent did not look at Mr Hawke. ‘He didn’t mention the word “surfeit”? No, the séance took place before the double killing. But he said it this morning, over and over. I’m hoping it just may mean that he’s satisfied. All the same …’ He suggested to Delphine: ‘You’ve had a bad time—this is twice he’s threatened you. You wouldn’t consider getting out of town for a bit?’
‘Oh, she can’t do that,’ said Joseph Hawke. ‘I need her here.’
She remained but now she was given police protection indeed, with safe-conduct to and from her home, a man posted all night on duty at her block of flats, even prowling the corridors outside of Joseph Hawke’s apartment. The work was ever-increasing, but they had been able to rent, from people fleeing from danger, a flat in the same building and there install a couple of secretaries. Three months passed by: No Face, appetite apparently appeased, struck no more. Gradually she seemed to forget her terrors, gave herself over to her study of the crystal ball. A success; she invented a little gimmick of her own, allowing the sitter to peer over her shoulder down into the wavery depths of the globe on its bed of black velvet then,
