The Mark of Cain
“. . . a two-edged sword . . . ”
Heb. 4.12
Harry Greenwood found time hung heavily on his hands since his retirement as editor
of the East Side Gazette. He had promised himself to write the novel he’d been mulling
over for years — the story of a young reporter who lands his first job with a major
metropolitan newspaper. But whenever he sat down at his word processor— a present
from his former colleagues on the Gazette — he was afflicted by a condition that
he could only describe as writer’s block. A frustrating experience for a man long
accustomed to tapping out seven hundred words a day on a battered Remington.
His friend Captain James had suggested the reason for this might simply be that Harry
was trying to write the wrong sort of book.
It was ostensibly to return a book he had borrowed — a work of detective fiction
— that Harry called into see Captain James, whose office was located above a soup
kitchen near the waterfront.
It had come as a surprise to Harry to discover that his friend had more than a passing
interest in the subject of murder. The captain had described to Harry in considerable
detail the psychological processes in the mind of a murderer: the tortuous interplay
of envy, hatred, anger, concealment, deception, denial. In fact, the captain had
said, the biblical story of Cain and Abel was a paradigm case.
The captain had gone on to discuss the significance of the mark of Cain. Unfortunately,
at this point, he had been interrupted by a visit from Sergeant Troy Goddard, who
needed to talk to the captain back at the police station.
Talk of the mark of Cain had whetted Harry’s curiosity. He had not known the captain
for long, but he was clearly a most unusual man.
“Well, Harry, what did you think of the Father Brown stories?” asked Captain James
as he returned the book to the shelf, alongside the volumes of Conan Doyle, Dorothy
Sayers, Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler and Ngaio Marsh.
“To tell the truth, detective fiction has never appealed to me much,” said Harry.
“I’ve always found it hard to take seriously these stories of amateur sleuths who
solve crimes merely by applying their powers of observation and deduction. But I
must say Father Brown is in a class of his own. Somehow, G. K. Chesterton persuades
you to believe — or at least to suspend your disbelief.”
Captain James smiled.
“Chesterton knew what he was about. He had an uncanny insight into the deceptive
power of evil. But then he was one of the best Christian apologists of his generation.”
“Do you believe that murderers actually bear the mark ofCain?” Harry asked.
“Undoubtedly,” said the captain. “The trick is to spot it. Usually it’s not too difficult.
As Father Brown shows, observation and deduction are the keys.”
“Are you saying you’ve actually spotted the mark yourself?”
“Yes. In a great many cases, I regret to say.”
Harry must have appeared sceptical.
“You’re not convinced, are you?”
“Frankly, no.”
The captain laughed.
“Maybe you’d like to accompany me on my round tonight. I think perhaps I can persuade
you to believe.”
“Where are we going?”
“Casey’s Bar. If you hand me my sword, we’ll be off.”
Captain James buttoned his jacket with the silver epaulettes and donned his hat with
its distinctive red band.
Harry passed the captain his well-thumbed Bible. The captain had been in many tight
spots during his thirty-year career as a Salvation Army officer but this, he’d told
Harry, was the only weapon he ever needed — a weapon sharper than a two-edged sword.
They strolled along the quay to Casey’s Bar.
“This was where the killing took place,” said the Captain, pausing at a narrow alley-way
that ran between a pawnshop and a seedy-looking cafe. “Maybe you recall the case
of Damon Veitch?”
“Yes, I do remember it,” said Harry. “He was found here with his throat cut. Practically
beheaded. I sent a cub reporter to cover the story. It was his first murder case
and he looked like a ghost when he got back from the morgue.
“As I recall, the police arrested one of the local hoods — Dokey I think his name
was. But they had to release him for lack of evidence.”
“It certainly wasn’t Dokey’s handiwork,” said the captain. “It wasn’t a street gang
slaying at all. The real killer is still at large. He drinks at Casey’s every night.
So here’s a chance to put your powers of observation and deduction to the test.”
They entered the bar. Harry ordered his usual martini, and a lemonade and sarsaparilla
for the captain. The captain finished his drink and circulated among the patrons.
Although a newcomer to the East Side, he was already a respected figure, and most
of the patrons were willing to buy a copy of the War Cry, or to make a donation to
the cause.
Harry scanned the faces in the bar, looking for some clue that might betray a homicidal
disposition in its owner. For the mark of Cain, whatever form it might take.
At first sight, they seemed a perfectly ordinary crowd of East Siders. Harry knew
many of them by sight at least. But on consideration, he could not really be sure
about anyone. Take burly Marcel the gas station owner, drinking Pernod and drumming
his fingers on the bar. Could he double as a hit man for a shadowy arm of the Magon
Mob? Or Chinese Joe the fruit seller, sitting by himself in a corner — could he be
a secret psychopath ready to run amok with a machete. Or the barman Enrico — he had
a nervous habit of glancing in the mirror as if on the lookout for someone, a sure
sign of a guilty conscience.
Who was the bearer of the mysterious mark? Harry wondered if Captain James were playing
some elaborate game, or if the captain himself were the victim of a confidence trick.
But even in the short time he’d known him, the captain had impressed him as one of
the sanest and most truthful of men.
Closing time came, and Harry was no further ahead in his investigation. On his way
out of the bar, he witnessed an incident that made him smile wryly. An old fellow
he’d noticed earlier in the evening had slipped on the wet pavement and fallen half
in, half out, of the gutter.
The grubby gabardine overcoat he wore had billowed beneath him like a pair of wings,
while his arms and legs flailed helplessly in the air. He reminded Harry of a large
moth fallen into a puddle. Obviously intoxicated, the old man was shouting in a language
that sounded like Russian.
Several patrons hurried to the old man’s aid, setting him back on his feet and brushing
off the droplets of water. Harry retrieved his walking stick — a heavy black stick
with an embossed metal handle — while Chinese Joe handed him a wine bottle which
had miraculously remained unbroken.
The old fellow had a shock of white hair and a drooping moustache. His face was heavily
weather-beaten and there was an unusual semicircular scar on his forehead.
He leaned on his stick with a surprisingly sinewy arm, tucked the bottle in his coat
pocket and began to weave his way down the street. Harry saw him turn into the alley-way
by the pawnshop.
He felt a little worried at leaving him on his own but consoled himself with the
thought that down-and-outers like the old man seemed to have an inbuilt automatic
pilot that kept them out of serious harm. God, it was said, watches over fools and
drunks.
His curiosity aroused, Harry slept badly that night. In his dreams he was pursued
down an alleyway by a demented Chinese fruiterer brandishing a machete. The alley-way
led into Casey’s Bar. In a dish on the counter lay the head of Marcel. Enrico explained
that Harry had taken Marcel’s drink by mistake but that he would rectify the mix-up.
He waved his cocktail stirrer, which turned into a wicked-looking silver knife. Captain
Janes, meanwhile, was urging the patrons to buy a copy of the War Cry and read about
the latest murders.
Next evening, conceding defeat in his attempt to identify the bearer of the mark,
Harry sat in Captain James’s office, awaiting his disclosure. He could see from the
rather severe way the captain regarded him over the top of his gold-framed spectacles
that he was enjoying himself.
“Shall we start at the beginning?” the captain asked.
“Please do.”
“Very well, I shall reconstruct what happened the night Damon Veitch met his death.
He had just moved here from up-city. He needed money to feed his growing drug habit.
There was an easy solution: wait in a back street alley-way and mug the first likely
victim who came by. He’d been doing this for years, in one place or another.
“Several patrons from Casey’s passed through the alley that evening but Veitch let
them go. The victim he chose was an old drunk named Martin Kowalski, who was last
to leave the premises. An easy target — not an especially well-heeled one, but Veitch
suspected he would have cashed his pension cheque that day, which in fact Martin
had done.”
“Martin was the old fellow with the white hair and moustache?”
“Correct. You helped him out of the gutter when he stumbled on his way out.”
Captain James paused.
“Veitch’s technique was rush his victim, knock him on the ground and hold a knife
to his throat. It wasn’t difficult to knock Martin down — you’ve seen how unsteady
he is on his feet. But he was unfortunate in his choice of victim — Martin never
goes anywhere without his stick.”
“I remember the stick,” Harry said. “That wouldn’t have been much protection against
a knife, surely?”
“You obviously didn’t notice anything unusual about the stick,” said Captain James.
“I borrowed it from Martin this evening. He’s having his dinner downstairs. Take
a closer look.”
He tossed Harry the stick, which had been propped against his chair.
Harry examined it closely. The stick was made of some dark, heavy wood. The handle
terminated in a silver eagle’s head.
“It’s certainly unusual,” said Harry. “A museum piece, I’d say.”
“Look more closely,” said the Captain when Harry handed back the stick. There was
a metallic click and the handle sprang away from the stock, revealing a slender,
double-edged blade.
The captain’s pale blue eyes glinted behind his spectacles as he ran his eye along
the blade.
“A swordstick,” he said. “A nice example of the work of Nicholas Jesson of London.
I have a similar example in my personal collection, which I’ll show you some time.
To see Martin Kowalski now you wouldn’t think he was once his country’s champion
fencer — but he has a case of gold medals to prove it. And he’s fought in more than
one duel, as the scar on his forehead shows.”
“Those brown spots on the blade aren’t rust, are they?” said Harry, shivering.
“No, they’re not. Damon Veitch wouldn’t have known what struck him. Your young reporter
probably described the condition of his body.”
“He did. In graphic detail. What happened to Martin after that?”
“Martin made it back to the doss house where he was living, which was something of
a miracle in itself,” said Captain James. “He took the stick with him of course.
He was discovered unconscious in his bed next day. When they got him to hospital,
they found he had a fractured skull.
“Of course, if they’d examined the bloodstains on his coat, which are still there
for anyone to see, they might have found two different blood types, which would have
been unusual to say the least. But it’s not a routine procedure when an old drunk
falls down and cracks his head.”
“Did Martin tell you this himself?”
“Because of his condition, Martin has very little short-term memory, and certainly
no memory at all of what happened that night.”
“Obviously it was a case of self-defence, so the police couldn’t charge Martin —
except possibly for carrying an offensive weapon,” said Harry.
“I carry an offensive weapon myself,” said the Captain, touching the Bible in his
breast pocket.
Harry laughed.
“Would you say Damon Veitch got what he deserved?” Harry asked.
That’s not for us to say,” said the captain. “Only one thing is certain: no one is
beyond ultimate redemption. Even though Damon Veitch was more than your typical street
mugger. Have a look at these.”
He handed Harry a folder of press cuttings.
Harry scanned the headlines: “Vagrant found with throat cut”, “Man slain in knife
attack”, “Police seek tourist’s killer”. The cuttings were marked with dates and
Harry noted they covered a period of several years.
“You believe Damon Veitch was responsible for these deaths?”
“Sergeant Goddard told me the police have now confirmed it. They’ve checked all the
forensic evidence and there’s no doubt about it. Those cases are now closed.”
“What about Martin’s case?”
“For the time being, I leave that to a higher authority than the police to settle,”
said the captain.
“Tell me,” said Harry. “Did you ever meet Damon Veitch?”
“Yes, I met him once.”
“How did you spot the mark of Cain on him?”
Captain James waved his arm towards the bookcase.
“We have our methods,” he said.
Harry poured himself a strong black coffee and switched on his word processor. The
captain had been right: he’d been trying to write the wrong kind of book. He now
knew the kind of book he was going to write.
He could see the central character clearly in his mind’s eye — a Salvation Army captain
who applied his powers of observation and deduction, and his deep knowledge of human
nature, to solve crimes that baffled the police. A foursquare, plain-spoken man who
moved easily in all levels of society, from the seedy waterfront bars and East Side
slums to the corporate board rooms and the fashionable night clubs and restaurants.
A temperate man who drank nothing stronger than lemonade with a dash of sarsaparilla.
A collector of antique swords. A brass bandsman who played hymn tunes on his cornet
for relaxation. A graduate of Yale who could quote from textbooks of criminal psychology
as well as from the Bible.
All that needed to be changed were the names and some minor details such as location.
The character’s name would be plain and simple like the man himself. Captain John
Adams.
He knew the first thing a good detective story needs is a title. It had to hold the
key to the mystery yet not give the game away. No problem here. The title had written
itself on the screen: Captain Adams and the Two-Edged Sword.
Humming a few bars of “Onwards Christian Soldiers” to himself, Harry set to work.
