Death Came Softly

by E. C. R. Lorac

  To Eve it was as though the sun had suddenly gone out and the morning turned black. She heard her own voice saying:

  “Are you quite sure? Perhaps he’s only fainted, or had a seizure. We must phone for the doctor.”

  “Of course. I’ll do that for you, at once, though I’m afraid nothing can be done. He must have died some hours ago.”

  “What is this you’re saying?” Carter’s voice broke in, just behind them, and Eve made an effort to think, and to act sensibly.

  “It’s the professor, Carter, down in the cave. Mr. Keston, phone to Dr. Dark at once, please. Carter, get some brandy, just in case, and then come after me to the cave, quickly.”

  Eve ran out of the open doors, across the drive and dew-spangled grass. She ran on until the thumping of her heart warned her to slow up. She should have got the car out, and she realized it when she was hurrying down the drive, half running, half walking. Carter, however, kept his head to the extent of remembering the length of the drive, and before Eve was halfway to the cave he over took her, and she stood on the running board while Carter drove to the arched entrance near the cave. Eve ran the short distance under the beech trees and entered the cave, whose interior was quite light now with the reflection of the sun off the lake just below—a queer effulgence of cool, greenish light. She knew as soon as she saw her father that Keston had been right. There was something rigid about the still figure which lay stretched on the hermit’s bed, eyes closed, but face turned up to the rocky roof. The professor looked very peaceful, the inscrutable smile of death on his face, almost as though he were happy as he lay in his strange resting place.

  Eve went and knelt beside her father’s body, and laid her hand over the cold, rigid hands which were loosely clasped on his breast. The first sense of shock and sorrow which had overwhelmed her gave place to an awareness of the strange peace which possessed the place, and the deep peace in which her father seemed enshrouded. The song of birds, the rhythm of running water and the breeze in the trees, all these mingled with the green filtered sunlight to make this strange resting place seem fitting for its present purpose. She turned her head to see Carter standing behind her, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “He must have died in his sleep,” she said softly. “Just passed from one sleep to another without knowing it, Carter. I can’t be sorry for him, he looks so happy.”

  * * *

  When asked afterward about the happenings of that morning, Eve Merrion always maintained that she had done what seemed most sensible and fitting at the moment. It never entered her head, she insisted, that there was anything other than natural causes to account for her father’s death. Seeing him lying there, so naturally and peacefully, she simply assumed that he had died in his sleep. Knowing him well, it seemed to her neither shocking nor incongruous that he should have died in that strange place. He had loved the hermit’s cave, and declared that he could “think” there better than elsewhere. There was something about its remoteness and seclusion which had appealed to the old man, who had held that meditation was a valuable exercise for the mind.

  Carter, however, was deeply shocked at the sight of the professor lying dead on the leaf-strewn rocky bed.

  “We must get him out of this, ma’am. I’ll get one of the gentlemen to help. We’ll bring him home for you. You just go along up to the house. We’ll see to it.”

  Keston had reappeared a few moments later, while Eve was still in the cave. He had telephoned to the doctor, and had been told that the latter had been called out to a maternity case, and was not yet in. Keston offered to take the car and drive into Enster to find another doctor—there was no other local man within reach. Eve shook her head.

  “No. There’s no object. A doctor can’t do anything. We’ll wait until Dr. Dark comes out.”

  Keston looked unhappy and helpless, and Carter said again:

  “Now you go on back to the house, ma’am. We’ll bring him back for you. It’ll be easier for us to manage without you. There’s one of the estate men working up in the woods there, he’ll lend a hand.”

  Eve had agreed, and returned to the house to break the news to her sister, leaving Carter and Roland Keston in the cave. Carter took the initiative.

  “We’re going to get the poor old gentleman moved out of this here horrible place and onto his own bed like a Christian,” he reiterated. “We can’t get him in the car. He’s as stiff as a board. . . .” He scratched his head unhappily, and then said, “There’s a gate of sorts outside—used to be put up against the entrance to keep folks out. That’ll do. . . . Now you just go and fetch Tom Briggs, he’s woodcutting up in the clearing.”

  Carter went out into the woods and hunted for the barred gate which had once been fitted into the cave’s entrance. Keston went up to the clearing and brought the forester back with him to the cave. Within ten minutes the melancholy little party had started their journey along the drive, with the professor’s body stretched out along the wooden gate. As they had raised him from his rocky bier, Keston had muttered: “Ought we to move him? Perhaps it’d be better to wait until the doctor’s seen him.”

  “Leave him in here?” protested Carter indignantly. “That I won’t do, I tell you straight. I’m going to take him home. Leave him here, indeed. Never heard of such a thing—a horrible hole like this.”

  Keston was tired, and he was never good at giving orders. He let Carter have his way, and trudged beside his master’s body in the glory of the morning sunlight.

  * * *

  “Police? What on earth have the police got to do with it?”

  Dr. Dark sighed. Like Roland Keston, he had had a weary night, and he would have been glad to be in his bed, rather than facing other people’s problems. Also he liked Mrs. Merrion, and would gladly have saved her added distress. He replied gently and patiently to her puzzled question.

  “I have told you that I can’t sign a certificate, Mrs. Merrion. I had not been attending your father, and I cannot be certain of the cause of his death. In these circumstances I have to inform the coroner, who will order a post-mortem. That is a routine matter inevitable in the circumstances. I am very sorry to distress you, but the police will probably make their own investigation. The whole matter is—somewhat obscure.”

  “Obscure? I know you think it extraordinary that my father should have slept in the cave, but then you didn’t know him. He wasn’t like other people. He often did odd things.”

  “Quite so. Learned men often seem eccentric to more ordinary ones. I am not questioning that point at all, and believe me, I am very sorry indeed to cause you any further distress.”

  “It’s not that. It just seems rather silly. . . . Father died in his sleep, of heart failure, surely? It wasn’t as though he was hurt in any way, or—”

  Eve broke off and stared at the doctor for a moment, her eyes wide with distress. “Surely you don’t think that his death was due to anything but . . . natural causes?”

  “I can’t tell you, Mrs. Merrion. That is why a post-mortem is essential. He had been dead for several hours before I examined him, and I can form no opinion.”

  Eve’s face stiffened and the color faded from her cheeks. She was silent for a few seconds, and then said quietly:

  “Of course you must do whatever is right in the circumstances. I didn’t think. . . . I know he had some trouble with his heart, and seeing him lying there so peacefully it seemed obvious he had died in his sleep.”

  “Quite, quite. I think you are right on certain points. He did die in his sleep, from heart failure, but the law requires that I ascertain the cause of that heart failure before a certificate can be given. Er—I don’t want to distress you, but in the circumstances I should advise that whoever was staying in the house last night should stay on here for the time being, on account of the necessary inquiry.”

  Eve sat very still and then replied, “I understand. I will see to it. You will let me know just what arrangements are to be made?”

  “O
f course—and I will do my best to spare you any trouble that I can.”

  Dr. Dark was glad to get away; he was sorry for Mrs. Merrion, but he viewed the matter of the professor’s death with grave misgivings. In unprofessional language, he thought it was a damned funny business.

  * * *

  “This is the place. Queer hole to choose to sleep in, isn’t it? But they all say the old chap was a bit odd. A law unto himself, as the saying is.”

  It was Inspector Turner of the Valehead constabulary who spoke; beside him stood Chief Detective Inspector Macdonald, C.I.D. Turner had come with Macdonald to show him the Hermit’s Cave, and also to air some of his, Turner’s, theories. The acting chief constable had been much exercised in his mind about Professor Crewdon’s death. A very detailed and patient investigation seemed indicated, but it was a difficult matter for the local force, at present overworked and undermanned, to spare the time and the men for a case which might turn out to be a wild goose chase. As the chief constable said, there was a perfectly obvious explanation to the case, and it might well be the right one. On the other hand, the explanation might be murder. Harassed and perplexed, the chief constable had appealed to Scotland Yard, and the Yard, in the person of Chief Inspector Macdonald, now stood at the entrance to the Hermit’s Cave.

  Macdonald, who was a Scot, and far from lacking in imagination, stood in the cave until his eyes became accustomed to the green gloom within. He saw the hermit’s bed, leaf-strewn, noted that the cave was neither damp nor clammy, and that the sun-warmed air from without moved pleasantly through it. The leaf-covered floor was dry beneath his feet, and through the lancet slit of the window space he could see the golden green of the sunlit woods. Macdonald sat down on the stone couch and gazed out through the arched door space to the sunlit lake and he replied, as David Lockersley had replied to Bruce Rhodian: “I can imagine many worse places to sleep. The professor was an anthropologist, wasn’t he, and interested in archeology. I expect this place appealed to his imagination.”

  “Well, I’m not up in ’ologies myself,” replied Turner. “Give me a proper bed to sleep in, clean sheets and a spring mattress. If the old man had died of lumbago I could have understood it.”

  “But he didn’t die of lumbago. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning,” said Macdonald meditatively. “Now what about this charcoal?”

  Turner was leaning against the arched entrance, and he pointed to the wall which was parallel with the hermit’s bed.

  “There’s a niche there. You’ll see it as your eyes get conditioned to this half-light. In the niche was a brazier; it’s been upset now, and its contents tumbled all over the floor. There was charcoal in the brazier, I suppose, and there’s a whole heap of it behind, in the niche. Charcoal gives off carbon monoxide when it’s heated. I suppose the professor lighted the brazier to warm himself, and then fell asleep, and the gas settled him.”

  Macdonald, who could now see clearly in the half-light of the cave, got up and went to the recess in the rocky wall which Turner had pointed out. As he approached it he felt the dry charcoal sticks crack and crumble under his feet. An ironwork brazier, with a grid bottom and a tripod stand, lay overturned near the recess. Macdonald turned his flashlight on the ground and picked up a piece of the charcoal.

  “Do you know how this stuff came to be here?” he asked. “Did the professor obtain it?”

  “No, not exactly. It’s ancient history, like the cave; also, like the cave, its origin is a bit uncertain. Scholars say that there was a charcoal burners’ settlement in this valley in olden times. According to an old fellow in our village, one charcoal burner lived and carried on his trade as late as Victorian times. He sold the stuff to the folks who lived in Valehead House. The owner had lived abroad and got used to the charcoal stoves such as the French peasants use, I’m told. What’s more certain is that there is still a pile of charcoal in an old stone hut in the woods. It’s quite possible that some of it was stored in this hole. On the other hand, the professor may have carted some of it in here to warm this place. It wouldn’t make any smoke, which would be a recommendation.”

  Macdonald nodded. “Quite. Can no member of the household give you any information on that point? This man Keston, for instance? Doesn’t he know anything about it?”

  Inspector Turner snorted derisively. “Keston? I’ve never met such a fool as that man appears to be. He doesn’t know anything about anything—not about anything useful, anyway. He’ll babble on about charcoal burners’ settlements centuries ago, but he knows nothing about any charcoal or brazier in this cave. Never noticed it. Says he’s short-sighted, which he is.”

  Macdonald considered the recess in the wall of the cave and then said, “Taking the dim light into account, it’s quite possible, probable even, that a man with quite good eyesight would notice neither charcoal nor brazier, unless he examined the place with a torch or a lantern.” He turned the beam of his flashlight on the rusted brazier. “No hope of fingerprints on that,” he said.

  Turner nodded. “None whatever, nor on anything else in this hole, either. Just rocks and dead leaves, and a trampled heap of charcoal. Who on earth can make anything out of evidence like that? I asked if the brazier was upset when the body was found. Nobody knew.” He gave an exasperated exclamation. “If only they’d had the sense to leave things alone; if they’d left the body where it was as they ought to have done, we might have come to a clear conclusion. As it is, nobody can tell me anything. They didn’t notice, didn’t think. Just trampled all over everything and destroyed any hope of evidence.”

  Macdonald returned to his seat on the hermit’s bed. “Intentionally, do you think?” he asked.

  Turner shrugged his shoulders. “Difficult to say. I don’t like that man Keston myself. He’s said to be a scholar and a very clever chap. He just looks a fool when I talk to him. Didn’t notice anything. He found the professor was dead, though. Also he was out all night when the old man died, and he gets quite a useful legacy under the will.”

  “All points to be noted,” agreed Macdonald. “What about the other man, Carter, who helped to move the body?”

  “Oh, he’s no need to pretend to be a fool. He is one, by nature. He and the forester who helped to move the body just galumphed all over the place. They probably did knock the brazier over, but they never noticed it.”

  “As you say, quite probably,” agreed Macdonald. “Now look here. I know you’re busy and you want to get back to your own jobs. I can put in an hour or so quite usefully examining this place, and my man can run you back to the village and then come back for me.”

  “Thanks. That’ll suit me down to the ground, though I reckon you’ll be tired of this place sooner than you think.” He stared around the cave with an exasperated expression. “If only they hadn’t been in such a hurry to move the body, we could probably have cleared the whole case up in half an hour. I think the probability is a thousand to one that the professor lighted that brazier, went to sleep and was poisoned by the gas through his own fault. If you try out any other theories they all fall down somewhere, don’t make sense.”

  Macdonald nodded. “It’s a way theories have, but the thousandth chance has to be considered. I’ll let you know what I make of it, and maybe go straight home again if I find the thousandth chance too improbable.”

  “Oh, stop the night down here anyway,” protested Turner. “I’d been looking forward to a talk. Life isn’t too exciting in these parts.”

  “Lucky for these parts,” chuckled Macdonald. “I’ve had enough excitement to last me for a long time.”

  * * *

  When Turner had gone, Macdonald made a careful examination of the cave, aided by his flashlight, but he found nothing to note; just the trampled charcoal, the overturned brazier and dry leaves and bracken.

  He then set the brazier on its feet again, put in some dry twigs which he collected outside, topped them with some leaves and lighted the twigs. He then sat down on the hermit’s bed and watched. The smok
e from the twigs went up in a slender column of smoke, but it did not spread out and fill the cave. The draught blowing in from the lancet slit turned the smoke toward the arched entrance, where it drifted out into the open air.

  After a while Macdonald lay down on the stone slab and looked upward. Some of the smoke rose up to the roof and spiraled about in fantastic wreaths, but none of it spread down to the stone bed. The draught from the lancet kept it whirling toward the larger aperture of the entrance, and the lower part of the cave remained clear. Macdonald watched it for quite a long time, and the longer he watched it the more convinced he became that no concentration of gas was possible in the cave while the lancet and the entrance were open to the air. In some odd, primitive way the cave was properly ventilated by its two apertures. This peculiarity, of course, accounted for the fact that it was not damp and noisome, as are the majority of caves. There was no spring of water trickling anywhere down the rocky walls, and the through current of air kept the place dry and wholesome, at any rate in the summer season, probably throughout the year.

  Macdonald’s next experiment was an endeavor to ignite some charcoal in the brazier, a task at which he was unsuccessful. The dry twigs flared up and burned out quickly, without igniting the charcoal sufficiently to keep it glowing. Macdonald gave a whistle and sat down again to think. In order to ignite the charcoal until it glowed, it would be necessary to make quite a sizable fire, or else to have some means of producing a steady draught. Censers used in churches had charcoal in them, as Macdonald knew; the charcoal was lighted, incense sprinkled on it, and the censer was then swung to produce a draught to keep the charcoal glowing. Now not only was there no pair of bellows in the cave; there was also no heap of wood ash to indicate that twigs had been lighted in sufficient quantities to start the charcoal fire glowing. One means or the other must have been used if the brazier, packed with charcoal, should achieve its purpose and develop glowing heat to warm the cave.