"I hope you'll excuse me for not being ready at show time but my watch is slow." "As a matter of fact, it hasn't even gotten here yet." "First, I would like to announce a change in our program." "Shakespeare's Hamlet will not be presented tonight." "We don't feel it suitable to show in the home." "All those corpses, you know." "Instead, we're offering a story entitled" ""The Hands of Mr. Ottermole. "" "Most of our stories have taken place in the United States or one of the other colonies." "But tonight we offer a new locale." ""The Hands of Mr. Ottermole"" "is laid in a far-off land of mystery and enchantment." "England." "And now suppose you continue squinting at this little screen while I slip into something more uncomfortable." "No, thank you." "Well, here I am." "Is that you, Herbert?" "Well, now, who did you think it was, your gentleman friend?" "Oh, Herbert!" "Kippers." "You know, I've been having a discussion with myself all the way home." ""Wonder what she's got for tea. " I said," ""Haddock or herring." ""I bet its haddock, but I hope not. "" "Kippers would be just the thing on a night like this." "Well, all right, then." "Your slippers are in here waiting for you." "Now, that's a blessing." "My feet are killing me." "Half a mo'." "There's someone at the door." "Oh, hello!" "Won't you come in?" "We're just going to sit down for tea." "We're going to have kippers, you know." "Herbert?" "Here!" "I said stop it!" "Ain't it terrible?" "Both of them..." "Here, let me..." "... and not a single witness." "Let me see, can't you." "Now then, now then, now then, keep back, everybody." "Outside the house, now." "Petersen!" "Petersen." "Now, you have to keep it quiet." "Come on." "Outside, outside." "Come on, get back there." "I don't know you!" "Mr. Whybrow's nephew from down the way." "Oh, all right, come in, come in." "Come on, come on, come on." "Go on home, go on home." "Well, now, you say you're his nephew." "Yes, I live down the road a piece." "Who did it?" "Well, now, we don't know about that as yet." "I'm finished here, Sarge." "I searched the back premises, nothing there." "Not a trace." "All right." "See if you can find anyone nearby who saw anything or heard anything unusual." "Right-o!" "Now, come on." "Get back." "What happened?" "They were strangled, we know that much." "But as to who did it, that's something else again." "I was passing nearby and I saw the door open." "So I looked in and there they were, just like that." "Dead." "And not a few minutes before I found them either." "But no sign of who did it, and no sign of a struggle or anything like that." "Would your uncle keep any sums of money about the place?" "Or anything of value like?" "Not that I know of." "I'm sure that he didn't have no sums of money to amount to much." "I could swear to that." "Very well." "Would you take a look about the place, see if there's anything missing?" "Or anything at all out of the way?" "You know, not like it ought to be." "Yes, all right." "Well, you didn't hear anything at all in here?" "Did you hear him come home or go into his house?" "Call out to anybody?" "No sound of a struggle?" "Nothing at all, eh?" "No, not a thing." "Me and the missus was in the back, you see, having our tea." "Say, what kind of a chap was he?" "Did you know him at all well?" "Lived next door to him for five years now." "Very quiet, dependable sort of fellow." "Everybody liked him." "Mmm-hmm." "Can't find a thing in the house that don't look everyday and proper." "Not anywhere at all." "Well, I didn't think you would." "There weren't any fingerprints, were there?" "No." "Not a sign." "Ah, that'll be the ambulance." "Why would anyone want to kill him?" "There's just no reason to it." "Oh, there's a reason all right." "Must be." "They're dead, aren't they?" "Sergeant, remember me?" "I'm from The Guardian, I'd like to..." "How did you get here so quickly?" "I live around here." "But what I'd like to know is..." "Sorry no time for the press just at present, Sir." "You'll have to wait a bit." "Now, now." "Now then, stand back." "I am sorry, gentleman, that is all the information we have for you just at present." "You've read the papers, I suppose?" "Yes, I have." "It's kicked up an awful stir." "The senseless wantonness of these killings has everybody talking about them." "I've been told to stick with this story till it's solved." "So have I." "So you better produce some results, eh, Sergeant." "You've made no progress so far." "What we might know and what we're able to tell you are two different things." "However, you may say that we expect to have something definite..." "To report at an early date." "No, I'm afraid the public won't accept that in this case, Sergeant." "Now, see here, this only happened the night before last." "You can't expect us to nab the man instantly when he left no clues at all." "So you have made no progress then?" "Now, wait a minute, I didn't say that." "I didn't say that at all." "You're twisting my words." "Buy a flower." "Buy a flower for your young lady, Sir," "I ain't sold none all day." "All right." "Nearly closing time, Ben." "You were a bit late last night, we can't have that, you know." "Don't worry, Sarge." "We ride in the dark tonight." "Last call for drinks." "Well, call that fair?" "I don't." "I don't call that fair." "After all, we've only had four days." "These things can't be done overnight, you know." "That's an editorial, old boy." "No good to complain to me about it." "I just have to turn in a story each day." "And you must confess, you haven't given me very much to turn in so far." "You or Scotland Yard." "Now, look here, you can't expect us to tell you every move we make, you know." "Then the criminal would know what we're doing, too, wouldn't he?" "Come on now, Sergeant, we're talking about progress and you can't report anything because you haven't made any." "Have you?" "Time, gentleman." "Please drink up and pay up." "All out." "By the way," "I find it remarkable how you gentleman of the press arrived at the spot so quickly." "Well, I'm a roving reporter now and I..." "That's where I happened to be roving at the time." "Good night, Sergeant." "Good night." "Time's up." "All right." "Buy a flower for the young lady, sir?" "Good evening, Sir." "It's been a long day." "Business ain't been so good." "And I was having a bit of a rest" "Good morning, Sergeant." "Have you seen The Guardian?" "No, and I don't want to." "Thank you very much." "So, you've made no progress with the old flower woman either." "Mr. Summers, how about a cup of tea?" "Thanks." "A little sugar if you please." "You know, I had a theory about this at the start." "The Whybrows, that is." "Since it seemed like there was no reason for killing them at all," "I thought maybe the reason why there seemed to be no reason was because there isn't any reason." "You see what I mean?" "He made a mistake, thought he was killing somebody else, went to the wrong house or something." "Eh, Sarge?" "Well, of course it's no good now." "He wouldn't make two mistakes." "And now we've got two sets of killing and no reason at all." "Doesn't seem to make sense somehow." "Wonder what the motive could be?" "Maybe there wasn't any." "Oh, there was a motive all right." "You can count on that." "There has to be a motive, you know." "No, no." "No." "There've been crimes, murders, without motives before." "Oh, come now, you don't mean no motive at all?" "That's right, there have." "Neil Cream for one." "And William Palmer for another, eh, Sergeant?" "That's right." "He was another." "I say, if you're up against a man like that, you're in real trouble, aren't you?" "Never know where he'll strike next or when." "Or what he's like or anything." "Let's visualize a man." "He appears ordinary, but yet he isn't." "Nothing so old-fashioned as a conscience bothers him, yet he has three murders to his credit." "And I'm sure he's sitting somewhere now calmly drinking a cup of tea, just as we are" "and smiling to himself because the police are such fools." "He's got something to smile about and that's a fact." "But he isn't an Englishman." "He's a foreigner." "They're all around this district, you know." "Why not an Englishman?" "'Cause we British haven't got the nature for a thing like that." "Nor the talent for it either." "One of these foreign johnnies." "They know tricks that we've never even heard of and wouldn't practice if we had." "Well, whoever he is and wherever he's from, he's a man to reckon with." "There's no escaping that." "You can't admire him certainly." "But you have to admit he's clever." "Do you realize what he's done?" "Yes." "He strangled three helpless, innocent people, that's what." "Oh, it's much more than that." "Have you been around this district lately?" "The people only talk about one subject." "The children aren't allowed to play in the streets." "Women do their shopping before dark and bolt their windows and doors at night." "They watch anxiously for their husbands' return from work." "Men eye each other, even familiar faces, and think, "It might be him. "" "This one man with a pair of hands has terrified this whole community and made them realize that the laws are powerful only so long as they are obeyed." "The police are potent so long as they are feared." "You seem so positive we're dealing with just one man." "Would you say there were two men, Sergeant, like that?" "Two men in the same place and at the same time?" "No, I'll own it seems unlikely." "That's right." "This is a singular man." "A man who comes along once in a lifetime probably." "This one man with one pair of hands has held the entire police force and Scotland Yard helpless with nowhere to turn." "Aye, he's done that." "Part of it, at least." "But as for having us powerless, with nowhere to turn, that's something else again." "It is?" "You have your informers out, I'm sure, in the pubs and the tea rooms." "But aside from that, what have you done?" "What can you do?" "He's made some mistake somewhere." "Or he'll make one." "You can bank on that." "And we'll be watching, never fear." "Maybe he won't, though." "What then?" "He will." "They always do." "Hmm, but they don't." "Now that's the thing." "What about Dr. Crippen?" "And George Joseph Smith?" "You've heard of them, Sergeant?" "Aye, I have." "Well, those people killed and were discovered only years afterwards by accident or belated confession." "Now, there must be many others who have never been discovered." "Now, you say the murderer is always caught because all the ones we know of have been caught." "But think of the others." "The ones we don't know about yet." "You seem to have made a great study of crime, Mr. Newspaperman." "I have." "Tell me, Sergeant, in your professional opinion, do you really believe you can catch this man if he doesn't want you to?" "Oh, aye." "We'll catch him." "Because we have to." "We've doubled our force the day after the first murder." "And now we have four men where we usually have one." "We are just hoping he will try again." "If he does, we've got him." "I see." "Of course, he might try somewhere else the next time." "You can't have quadrupled your force throughout the entire city." "That's true." "But he might just be the type of man who would like to show us he could kill again beneath our noses and still get away with it." "Hmm?" "Bye for now." "Good day." "Well, hello there, Jimmy." "Would you like to go across?" "Right then, here we go." "Here we are." "Now, up." "Well?" "Not a thing." "Keep a sharp lookout every second." "That's what it takes, you know." "Can't let up because we've had four days with nothing new." "I only spoke to Petersen." "It was 9:32 by my watch." "And you found him at 9:35." "That's when you blew your whistle." "What happened?" "Another one?" "Yes." "Got one of their own men this time." "It's Petersen." "I can't believe it." "Johnson, take over." "Make way." "Make way, now." "You heard nothing?" "You saw no sign of anybody at all?" "Nobody." "Nobody." "Not a blinking soul." "Except Jimmy, the blind bootblack." "But it can't be him." "There wasn't a sound or a movement on this street as I came along it." "Nothing, until..." "But it must have happened right under your nose, man." "Not seconds after you left him." "What's the matter with you?" "I don't know." "I don't know." "Blimey, Sarge, he must live hereabouts." "That's certain." "But where?" "Where?" "Nobody saw, nobody heard, nothing." "All right." "You and the others spread out." "Search all the buildings on both sides of the street." "Question everybody." "Pull them out of bed if need be." "Look into cupboards and behind curtains." "Don't accept excuses." "Here we are, Sir." "Thank you, Ben." "Things have come to a pretty pass and no mistake." "When a man or woman walks out alone these days, does nothing less than take his life in his hands, and that's the truth." "They'll catch him soon." "Any time now." "What makes you so certain?" "When a man can kills you or me, that's one thing." "But when a copper gets killed, that's another story." "Then all the other coppers realize maybe they're next." "They won't rest till the murderer is caught." "See?" "What will you have, sir?" "Same as usual." "All right." "Don't even know what this creature is." "Man, beast or devil." "Well, I know I shan't run out alone again." "He's mad." "Unbalanced somehow." "Don't you agree?" "Possibly." "Probably." "But there's something else about this." "Something obvious." "Something right in front of us." "You see, when there's something right before our eyes, we don't stop to ask how it got there." "Like the ham in that sandwich." "It's just there." "We don't think of it at all." "Much less stop to say, "How did it get there?"" "How did it get there, by the by?" "Well, somebody put it there, I dare say." "Yes." "That's right." "Somebody did." "Sergeant?" "Is that you, Sergeant?" "Oh, it's you." "Yes." "Well, seen anything of the murderer?" "No, nor has anybody else." "I doubt if they ever will." "Oh, I don't know." "I've been thinking about it and an idea came to me just now." "Oh, really?" "Yes." "Came to me all of a sudden, just a little while ago." "Made me feel as though we've been blind." "It's been staring us in the face." "Oh, has it?" "Well, if you're so sure, why not give us the benefit of this idea?" "I'm going to." "We were talking in the bar now about things that are staring us in the face." "Things that we don't think about to question." "Like the ham in a sandwich, you know." "We never wonder how it got there." "But somebody said, "Well, if it's there," ""somebody must have put it there. "" "And that was it." "Now, if four people have been murdered, somebody must have been there to murder them, you see." "Well, of course someone was there." "We all know that." "Question is, who?" "Yes." "The answer seems so simple now." "But there's one thing I don't understand." "One little thing I'd like to clear up." "I mean, the motive." "As man to man, tell me, Sergeant Ottermole," "just why did you kill those inoffensive people?" "Well, to tell you the truth, Mr. Newspaperman," "I don't know." "In fact, I've been worried about it myself." "But, I've got an idea, just like you." "Everybody knows we can't control the workings of our minds, don't they?" "Ideas come without our asking." "But everybody's supposed to be able to control the workings of his body." "Why?" "Our arms, our legs, our heads, aren't completely ours." "We don't make them." "And couldn't ideas come into our limbs, just like ideas come into our minds?" "Huh?" "Couldn't ideas live in nerve and muscle as well as in the brain?" "And couldn't it be that parts of our bodies aren't really us?" "And ideas could come into those parts all of a sudden like ideas come into" "my hands?" "Are you all right?" "Are you all right?" "Yes." "I never saw anything so quick or anyone so strong." "I thought I was done for, for a moment." "I know." "We were following as close as we dared." "It's a good thing we got the constable here in time." "The sergeant." "I can't believe it." "His hands were like iron." "Yes, his hands." "Did you hear what he said about his hands?" "He said ideas came into his hands." "He must have been insane." "Yes" "I suppose so." "Ow!" "Stop it!" "Stop it!" "I'll tie it myself." "It won't take long." "I'm sure I'll be ready by next week's show." "And you be ready, too."