Sorcerer's House

by Gerald Verner

  “And I met Fay...

  “It wasn’t long,” he continued, after a pause, “before I discovered that there was something wrong. There was nothing very much outwardly, but I’d had experience and I knew the signs.”

  “I know!” broke in Gale, “I recognized ’em, too—when she sat for that picture...”

  Ferrall nodded. The strained look about his eyes was not so noticeable. He said, with a sudden expulsion of his breath:

  “I’m glad to be able to talk about it—it’s a relief. I’ve been worried sick ever since you started talking about Fay to Hatchard and Chipingham that day. I knew, then, that you must have guessed. I told Avril...”

  “Does Avril know?” asked Gale quickly.

  “She’s known all along. She begged me not to have anything to do with it, but what could I do?”

  So Flake had been wrong, thought Alan. It was not because Avril Ferrall had been in love with Meriton that had made her look so ill. It was worry—the fear of being found out.

  “I soon discovered,” Ferrall went on, “that the reason Meriton had suggested my taking over Wycherly’s practice was because he wanted to have a doctor on the spot who was used to mental cases—somebody he could trust completely.”

  “But, surely, at that time Fay hadn’t shown any signs of homicidal tenden—?”

  “No, no,” Ferrall shook his head quickly. “That came suddenly—and completely unexpectedly. Of course, you can never tell in these cases, but I was quite unprepared for anything like that.” He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray on the desk. “Fay, until then, was suffering from a paranoid psychosis. She had delusions in which she became the principal character in a series of imagined situations.”

  “I guess that’s over my head,” said Alan. Ferrall smiled. It was a smile that twisted his mouth but left his eyes unchanged. He said:

  “I’ll try and explain. In its milder form it’s very common and quite harmless. You’ve probably experienced something of the kind when you’ve imagined yourself in some unlikely situation, such as—er—being chosen to play for England in the Test—in your case, I suppose, it would be baseball—and saving the Ashes by a brilliant catch, or a stroke that gains the winning run— something of that sort. The point is that you are the outstanding personality—the hero. Most people have these pleasant daydreams at some time or other. It’s an extension of childhood, during which these kind of imaginings play a predominant part.

  “With Fay it was carried to an extreme.

  “The majority of people,” Ferrall continued, after a pause, “when they talk about hysteria, mean a crying or laughing fit brought about by overcharged emotions. Real hysteria is something very different. It is a nervous disease that can produce actual insanity.”

  “So I hit the nail bang on the head, eh?” cried Gale.

  “You did,” agreed Ferrall. “And that’s what worried me.” He lit another cigarette. “The hysteric, you know,” he said, “lives in a world of self-created illusion. For example, he or she may believe that it is impossible to walk, and becomes, to all intents and purposes, paralysed. Reality is subordinated to a fixed idea.”

  “But Fay Meriton didn’t suffer from that kind of illusion, surely?” said Alan.

  “No, no, no!” said Ferrall impatiently. “I merely used that as an illustration to show you just how the hysteric’s mind works. Fay, at first, only tried to escape to a world of her own imagination because she was disappointed with reality. The result was that room in Sorcerer’s House. It was there that she lived her real life.”

  “The Robbers’ Cave,” exclaimed Gale, “the Pirate Ship, eh?”

  “Exactly!” said Ferrall. “I see you understand. That room was, to Fay, what the hide-out at the bottom of the garden, or the collection of chairs and boxes, is to the small boy. A world of make-believe. If it had stopped there...” He shrugged his shoulders. “But it didn’t. I was a lot to blame for what did happen. I should have insisted that Fay was put under restraint earlier. But, although there were occasional scenes and hysterical outbursts, I didn’t think there was anything really serious…nothing that would lead to—murder.”

  “You should have known that when you’re dealing with a hysteric, anything is possible,” grunted Simon Gale, scowling.

  Ferrall’s face clouded. For a moment, Alan thought he was going to lose his temper. Then he said, a little ruefully:

  “I suppose I deserve that. But outwardly, you see, Fay was normal. Nobody would have suspected—nobody did—and Meriton begged me to keep the secret. He, quite literally, worshipped her. He was sure that she’d recover with care and watchfulness. He didn’t realize that the basis of this disease is sexual, and that Fay had married the wrong man. It was no use telling him. He wouldn’t have understood. And then—the tramp was killed.”

  Ferrall got up. He walked over to a side table and poured himself out a glass of water.

  “That night will stick in my memory until I die,” he said, facing them with the glass in his hand. “And in Avril’s. We’d gone to bed when Paul arrived, looking like death. Fay was with him, and her clothes were all smeared with blood. She was in a terribly excited state, on the verge of a hysterical outburst, and I had to give her an injection to keep her quiet. Avril took her to the bedroom to lie down. And then Meriton told me...” He sipped a little of the water, and put the glass down. “He’d found her, up at the old house, bending over the body of that tramp, with a piece of rusty old iron piping in her hand. Of course, she’d sworn that she hadn’t killed him, but there wasn’t any doubt about it in my mind. I knew, then, that the streak of insanity had suddenly taken a new and terrible turn. We sat up all night, while Fay slept under the drug I had given her, discussing what was to be done. I urged Paul to take drastic action, but he wouldn’t hear of it. There might be a mistake, he said. Perhaps somebody else had killed the tramp. He didn’t really believe it, he was just trying to convince himself. It would easily pass for an accident, he argued. Why not give Fay the benefit of the doubt? He’d buried the iron bar and carried the body of the tramp and put it under the window of the Long Room. It would look like an accident.”

  “Where was the tramp actually killed?” demanded Gale.

  “Near the front door,” answered Ferrall. “Paul removed all traces of the bloodstains by the steps.” He went over to the window and stared out into the sunlit garden. “I allowed myself to be talked over,” he said bitterly. “I agreed to say nothing. If I’d only spoken out, then, that girl would never have been killed.”

  “Who was she?” asked Alan.

  “I don’t know.” Ferrall leaned against the frame of the window and thrust his hands into his pockets. “She was on holiday, I think. She had a bicycle.”

  “Did Meriton bury that, too?” said Gale.

  Ferrall nodded.

  “Yes, under the old rockery,” he answered. “The girl was killed in the afternoon—I suppose she must have wandered into the grounds. You know how a place like that sometimes attracts people? Perhaps she was looking for somewhere to picnic. She had a packet of sandwiches with her—and a bottle of milk. It was a hot afternoon. And she ran into Fay...” The strained look had come back to his eyes. “Paul was frantic with worry. I insisted that the police should be informed, but he pleaded with me. He suggested that we should get Fay into the mental home at Shilford. It would save all the scandal, the dragging of the whole thing through the courts. We argued and argued. In the end, like a fool, I rang up Preston…” He passed a hand wearily across his forehead. “We got Fay to Shilford that night. She was quite willing. Meriton explained to her what the alternative would be, and she was frightened. He persuaded her to write that note, because we had to account, somehow, for her sudden disappearance. Preston was a little difficult at first, but I managed to talk him round. Meriton was willing to pay pretty stiffly. We never mentioned the real reason, of course, we just laid that Fay was subject to fits of violence. Preston could tell, when he examined her, that she w
as a psychopathic case, so there was no trouble there. He and I signed the certificate, and Fay was .admitted. She’s been there ever since.”

  “Has she?” cried Simon Gale, leaping to his feet. “That’s the whole point, Ferrall. Has she?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Ferrall sharply.

  “Meriton was killed in exactly the same way as those other two,” said Gale. “If—”

  “And you’re wondering if Fay was responsible?” interrupted Ferrall. “Well, you can put that out of your mind. I don’t know who murdered Paul, but it wasn’t Fay. She’s never been out of that mental home, Gale, since she went in, nearly two years ago— not for a single instant. She’s still there.”

  *

  “Now you know the truth, Simon, what are you going to do?” asked Avril anxiously.

  They were back in the drawing room. A tray of tea, the cakes and sandwiches untouched, stood on a low table beside her. Alan Boyce, with a cup of tea balanced on his knee, sat facing her. Dr. Ferrall stood by the fireplace, one elbow resting on the mantelpiece. Simon Gale, a ferocious scowl drawing down his bushy brows, strode restlessly about the room, winding the end of his beard round his fingers. Outside, in the sun-flooded garden, the birds made a chorus of sound in the trees.

  “I don’t know,” muttered Gale. “I’ve got to think...”

  Avril’s worried eyes sought her brother’s. He shrugged his shoulders. Alan got the impression that whatever the outcome he did not care anymore. His expression was that of a man who had faced the worst that could happen to him and found a certain peace of mind in acceptance.

  “You’re quite sure,” said Gale, “that Fay couldn’t have got out of that home—not even for a short time?”

  “Quite,” answered Ferrall. “It was the first thing I thought of—when I knew about Meriton. I telephoned Preston immediately.”

  “By the Great Oracle of Delphi!” cried Gale, suddenly smashing his fist into the palm of his hand. “The pattern’s clear up to a point, and then it goes all haywire. It’s like a half-finished picture with the rest of the canvas blank.” He began to pace up and down the room again. “Look here…during that hour, when Meriton drove around the country with you…what did he talk about?”

  “Fay,” answered Ferrall. “That’s all he ever talked about to us—wondering if she’d really killed those people.”

  “Did he say anything—anything at all, mark you—that might have suggested he was going up to that house later, or that he was meeting someone?”

  Ferrall shook his head. He said:

  “No. He used to go there…and sit in that room…looking at the picture. But that was a long time ago. I don’t think he went near the place for nearly a year.”

  “So it was Meriton who hung the picture over that mantelpiece, eh?”

  “Fay would never have had it there,” said Avril. She was frowning in a puzzled way and nibbling at her finger. “She hated it. There was something, you know…that night when Paul was killed…”

  Simon Gale whirled round.

  “Yes?” he cried excitedly. “Yes? What was it—quickly!”

  “It wasn’t anything he said,” answered Avril slowly. “But I got an idea that something had upset him. Something that Fay had told him.”

  “You never mentioned it to me,” broke in Ferrall sharply.

  “I’ve only just remembered,” she said. “I…”

  “Something that Fay had told him?” repeated Gale. “When?”

  “I suppose, when he last saw her.”

  “He used to visit her once a week,” put in Ferrall. “The last time would have been…the day before he was killed.”

  “And you think she told him something, then, that upset him?” demanded Gale, glaring at Avril with such a malignant expression that she shied away.

  “It—it was only an impression I got,” she said. “I—I couldn’t be sure...I may be entirely wrong.”

  “I’ve got to see Fay,” interrupted Gale, gnawing at his knuckles. “I’ve got to see her, d’you see? Can you fix it?” He turned to Ferrall.

  “I suppose it could be arranged,” answered Ferrall dubiously.

  “Then do it,” said Gale. “As soon as possible…tomorrow. Does she know—about Meriton?”

  “No. Look here, you’ll have to be careful about that. There might be very grave danger...”

  “Do you think I’m a complete fathead?” growled Gale, in high dudgeon. “D’you suppose I’m going to blurt it out like a schoolboy over his first love affair? Rubbish! It may not be necessary to tell her at all.”

  “She’ll have to know,” said Avril, “won’t she? She’ll wonder why he doesn’t go to see her anymore.”

  “Why,” said Alan, on a sudden impulse, “did you say to Dr. Ferrall, that night in the garden at the Onslow-Whites’, that something was dangerous?”

  There was a sudden complete silence.

  Simon Gale stopped dead in the middle of his patrol of the room. He said, looking sharply at the American:

  “What’s that? What’s that, young feller?”

  “That’s what you said, wasn’t it?” asked Alan.

  “Did I?” Avril pursed her lips doubtfully, but her rich voice was not quite steady. “I ...must have been referring to this business of Fay…”

  “That’s right, you were,” said Ferrall. “You were always warning me how dangerous it was.”

  “That was it, eh?” said Gale. “Look here, while we’re on the subject of what happened in that garden, there’s something I’d like to know. Why did you talk all that bilge about seeing a light in the window of the Long Room at Sorcerer’s House? You knew very well what had started the local superstition—so did Meriton. It was Fay—when she used that room. And, later, it was Meriton himself. They fostered it between them. Why, by all the Powers of Darkness, did you have to make such a hullabaloo pretending that you’d seen a light there?”

  “That’s just it,” said Avril slowly. “I wasn’t pretending. I did see a light. And Paul was at Shilford that night—he always stayed the night at the hotel when he went to see Fay—so it couldn’t have been he. Somebody was in Sorcerer’s House. But it wasn’t Paul…”

  *

  Peter Ferrall arranged for them to go to Shilford on the following afternoon. He telephoned Simon Gale in the morning, and Gale telephoned Alan Boyce.

  Alan had some little difficulty in getting away. Flake, not unnaturally, wanted to know where he was going, and, since he was unable to tell her the truth, and had to think of a not very plausible excuse, there was a certain amount of coolness between them.

  The spell of hot weather broke during the night, and the morning was grey and cloudy. It was still warm, but the rain started to fall just after lunch. By the time Alan met Gale and Ferrall, at the latter’s house, it had developed into a steady downpour.

  Avril did not go with them. Alan was rather sorry that she had not before the journey was over, for Simon Gale, apparently completely absorbed in his own thoughts, scarcely spoke a word throughout, and Ferrall was equally taciturn.

  With the screen-wiper working madly they reached Shilford at a few minutes before six.

  “Pull up at the pub,” grunted Gale, rousing himself at last. “I feel in need of beer before we face this business.”

  “I could do with a drink myself,” said Ferrall.

  It was pouring in torrents when they got out of the car and entered the bar of the Shilford Arms. At that early hour it was nearly empty. Except for themselves and a middle-aged barmaid, there were only two men with brief-cases talking in low tones to one corner.

  Gale ordered drinks, beer for himself and whisky for Alan and Ferrall.

  “I’m not looking forward to this at all, you know,” said Ferrall abruptly.

  “It’s got to be done,” answered Gale. To the fascinated astonishment of the barmaid, he poured the entire contents of the tankard down his throat without appearing to swallow.

  “We’ll have another, and then we�
��ll go,” said Ferrall, signalling to the dazed barmaid, who was still staring at Gale with slightly protruding eyes. “I ought to warn you,” he went on, in a lower tone, “that Fay isn’t expecting us. Preston thought it would be better if it looked as though we had dropped in casually...”

  Alan felt an absurd desire to laugh. Did one ‘drop in casually’ to see the inmates of a mental home? Like calling in at a friend’s house for a cocktail? What sort of effect would it have on Fay Meriton, who, presumably, was under the impression that nobody, except her husband and Ferrall, knew where she was?

  They finished the drinks and went back to the car. The sky was lowering and leaden-coloured. The rain, now that it had come, looked as if it might go on for ever.

  The mental home was approached by a narrow lane. A high wall of old red brick with a coping of broken glass surrounded it, and the entrance was guarded by a pair of heavy iron gates. Just inside was a small lodge, and a porter came out of this when Ferrall rang the bell. He unlocked the gates, waited until they had driven through, and relocked them, returning as quickly as he could to the lodge.

  They drove up a wide gravelled drive to the house, which was an ugly building, like an oblong box of brick with many windows, most of them protected by iron bars. In the driving rain it looked bleak and depressing. There were no trees or shrubs to soften the hard lines. Smooth lawns stretched away to the bareness of the surrounding walls. Nothing, thought the American, that would offer a vestige of cover for anyone trying to escape.

  The massive front door, set flat between two shallow pillars, was opened by an elderly woman in a nurse’s uniform, who, after a word of greeting to Ferrall, led them across a bare hall, shining with paint and polish, to a door at the far end which bore the inscription in black lettering: ‘Dr. Preston. Private.’