When Ian arrived at the station house early Monday morning, he was greeted by Constable Bowers.
“Boss wants to see you, sir,” he said, jerking a thumb in the direction of Crawford’s office.
“What about?”
“The letters, I expect,” Bowers replied, buttoning his overcoat.
“Letters?”
“You haven’t heard?”
Ian looked around the room. Everyone was staring at him expectantly. “Apparently I’m the only one who hasn’t,” he said. “Thanks, Constable.”
“Good luck, sir,” Bowers replied before ducking out through the double doors leading to the main staircase.
Ian’s knock on Crawford’s door was greeted by a muffled grunt that might have been “Come in,” “Come bin,” or “Corn bin.” Crawford evidently had a cold—not a good sign.
The chief inspector was seated behind his desk, staring disconsolately at an untidy pile of correspondence in front of him.
“Bowers said you wanted to see me, sir?” said Ian.
“Close the door behind you,” said Crawford, blowing his nose into an enormous white handkerchief.
“You seem to have caught a cold, sir,” Ian remarked as he closed the door.
“Your stunning powers of observation have not been exaggerated,” Crawford muttered, stuffing the kerchief into his breast pocket.
“Sir?” Ian said, beginning to lose his patience but intent on not showing it.
“Well, what are you standing there for? Here they are,” he said, grabbing a fistful of letters. “Come have a look.”
“What are they, exactly?”
“Letters from every crackpot in the city purporting to be the strangler. And a few useful suggestions on how to improve our job performance.”
“Could any of them be authentic?”
“That’s for you to decide—you’re the lead detective,” Crawford said, pushing the pile toward Ian. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like my desk back.”
Ian threw open the door and called out into the main room. “Sergeant Dickerson, would you bring me a box?”
Moments later the sergeant appeared with the requested item. Scooping the letters into the box, Ian left Crawford’s office and returned to his own desk.
“Blimey, sir,” said Dickerson, staring at the box full of correspondence.
“Roll up your sleeves, Sergeant,” said Ian. “They aren’t going to sort themselves.”
There were dozens of letters, all shapes and sizes, some just scribbled notes on bits of scrap paper, others carefully penned on good-quality paper. Some were typed. Several were from women; one wanted to meet with the strangler, claiming she could mend his evil ways. Another offered to marry Ian.
One letter stuck out from the rest. Written in a firm, masculine script, with good-quality blue ink, it was on Waterloo Hotel stationery and said simply, Catch him before I kill him.
There were no other identifying marks of any kind—it was unsigned and undated.
“What do you make of this?” Ian asked Dickerson.
The sergeant frowned and scratched his chin. “How can he kill t’strangler unless he knows who t’is?”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“D’you s’pose this fellow is stayin’ at the Waterloo? It’s a fancy place.”
“It’s possible—but equally likely he used this stationery to throw us off the track.”
“So is there anythin’ we can do?”
“Not at the moment, I think,” Ian said, but he folded the letter carefully and slid it into his vest pocket.
Ian spent the rest of the day chasing down leads in the death of Bobby Tierney. His attempts met with failure—Tierney’s sister was not at home, and the neighbors were either away or uncommunicative. He hoped Sergeant Dickerson had met with better luck, having been dispatched to the other end of town to ferret out information in the Wycherly case.
Ian turned up at the station house shortly after five, disappointed and weary. The shift had just changed, but he found the ever-faithful Dickerson at his desk, working. A smile crossed the sergeant’s freckled face when he saw Ian, but a frown quickly replaced it when he saw the detective’s expression.
“Bad day, sir?”
Ian flung himself into the chair next to Dickerson’s desk. “‘I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.’”
“That’s very . . . poetic, sir.”
“Shakespeare has that reputation, Sergeant.”
“I were just puttin’ down a few remarks. Miss Harley weren’t t’home, but I told her maidservant we’d call again tomorrow.”
“Ah, yes, the niece who was in love with young Wycherly.”
“Come again, sir?”
“Wycherly’s employer, Eugene Harley, thought his niece was sweet on Stephen.”
“That could give matters an int’resting twist, sir.”
“Have you managed to locate any stationery shops in Edinburgh selling playing cards with that unusual design?”
“Not as yet, sir. Per’aps we should look at some specialty shops.”
“Good idea.”
Ian looked out the window. Night had fallen, and a blank-faced moon was already rising in the eastern sky.
“Let’s examine the elements of the crimes. What is one constant in both cases?”
“Assumin’ the two dead men are victims of the same killer, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I s’pose it’s that both victims are men.”
“Write that down—make a column called ‘Victims.’”
Dickerson complied, biting his lower lip in concentration. His handwriting was precise and small, the letters perfectly symmetrical.
“Good,” said Ian. “Now, what is the other constant in both cases?”
“The fact that they were both killed th’ same way, y’mean?”
“Ah, not just any way—they were strangled. The constant is method, Sergeant. That’s another column. Use capital letters.”
Dickerson wrote M E T H O D and drew a line beneath it.
“This tells us something about the relationship between victim and murderer.”
Dickerson’s bland face went blank. “Sir?”
“Strangulation is a very personal method of killing someone.”
“I’m ’fraid I don’ take your meaning, sir.”
“It’s not the easiest way to kill. What if the victim fights back, or manages to escape? It would be far simpler—and more reliable—to simply shoot someone, or knife them, or even bang them over the head.”
“But if there’s no weapon t’hand, might it not be a killer’s only choice?”
“Young Wycherly was pushed off the cliff after he was strangled, when the fall alone surely would have killed him. As you yourself said, why not just push him and be done with it?”
Dickerson smiled. “I did say that, didn’ I?”
“More often than not, the killer will have a personal relationship with a victim he chooses to strangle.”
“So y’think Stephen Wycherly knew his killer, then?”
“I think it quite likely.”
Constables on the evening shift were shuffling into the station, stamping snow from their boots, chatting and laughing as they headed for the tea caddy. It was the kind of bitter cold that made a hot cup of tea seem positively medicinal.