“I can understand, Inspector,” said Colonel Ayling, completely ignoring Gale, “why you brought Dr. Ferrall with you, I cannot see any reason why you should have brought Mr. Gale and Mr. Boyce.”
“I came because I want to ask you some questions,” said Gale. “I believe that—”
“I do not acknowledge your right to ask me any questions,” interrupted Colonel Ayling, turning upon him frigidly. “I consider this interference in matters which do not concern you intolerably impertinent.” His voice was cracked; the almost inhuman control he was exercising was dangerously near breaking point.
Gale raised his eyebrows and scowled. “You don’t want to find the person who murdered your daughter and Meriton?”
“I prefer to leave it in the hands of the proper authorities,” retorted Ayling. “I dislike the intrusion of amateur sensation seekers!” He moved forward. It was, thought Alan, like an automaton moving. “I should be obliged,” Ayling continued, and there was the faintest tremor in his voice, “if you would leave me. This has, naturally, been a great shock. Not only that my daughter is dead, but how and where she died. I should have been told about that, Ferrall. Even with my daughter’s consent, you and Meriton should not have acted on your own initiative.”
Ferrall remained silent. What could he say, thought Alan, without telling the old man the real reason why his daughter had been taken to the mental home at Shilford?
“I’m afraid, sir,” said Hatchard, “that you’ll be required at the inquest.”
Colonel Ayling inclined his head. “I will do anything that is necessary. Now, please, will you go!”
He escorted them to the front door, wished them ‘good night’ and closed it behind them. That rigid control had remained to the last, but Alan had a feeling that once the door was shut it had snapped.
In the moonlit, symmetrical front garden they looked at each other.
“Well, that’s that,” said Ferrall. He sounded relieved.
Hatchard nodded. “Not a very pleasant job.” He made a wry face. “You didn’t seem very popular, sir,” he added to Gale.
“Ayling’s never approved of me,” answered Gale, shrugging. “I’m everything he dislikes, d’you see. I’ve got to have a talk with him, though.”
“I guess,” put in Alan, “you won’t find it easy. Mrs. Ayling must be a sound sleeper.”
“She always takes a sleeping tablet,” said Ferrall. “I doubt if anything would wake her until after the first effects have worn off.”
They walked down the gravel path to the waiting police car with the yawning sergeant at the wheel.
“What were the questions you wanted to ask Colonel Ayling, sir?” asked Hatchard curiously, as they got in. “Are they important?”
Gale flung himself into a corner of the back seat. “One of ’em was,” he answered, “it’s so important, d’you see, that I’ve got to have an answer. It’s the one question on which this whole case hinges— Why did Fay marry Paul Meriton?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Henry Onslow-White and his wife had gone to bed when Alan got back to Bryony Cottage, but Flake was waiting up for him. She insisted on making coffee and sandwiches, and while he ate and drank, she plied him with questions.
There was little he could tell her. He described the search of Meriton’s house, but so far as he knew, this had ended in rather an anti-climax. He said nothing at all concerning Fay Meriton’s death. It would have involved a long explanation which he couldn’t go into without disclosing why she had originally gone to the mental home at Shilford, and he thought that Simon Gale would prefer that it wasn’t mentioned. The news was sure to leak out soon about the murder, but in the meanwhile he concluded it was better to keep a still tongue.
“Well,” remarked Flake, when he had finished, “you seem to have spent a long time doing nothing! What is Simon up to, Alan? Do you really think he knows all about it, as he says?’
Alan shrugged. “I guess I can’t make up my mind,’ he answered. You know him better than I do.”
“You never can tell with Simon,” said Flake, frowning. “The only thing you can be sure of is that he’s thoroughly enjoying himself.” She got up from the arm of the chair on which she had been perched. “I’m going to bed,” she said. “I’m very disappointed, Alan. I expected some sensational news. I’m beginning to think this business will never be cleared up. Perhaps there isn’t a natural explanation.”
“Say,” protested Alan, “you’re not suggesting that Meriton was killed by something supernatural?”
“That old house has always been—queer,” she said seriously. “It’s evil. Even in bright sunshine you can feel it—as though it was saturated with something horrible…” She shivered suddenly.
“There was nothing supernatural about those footprints in the dust on the stairs,” said Alan practically. “Somebody went to the house with Meriton on that night.”
“I know,” said Flake. “But things can get into people. When Cagliostro lived there, Threshold House must have been the focal point of all kinds of horrors...”
“That,” said Alan, smiling, “is a nice thought to go to bed with!”
She laughed. “Look here, shall we go and play tennis after breakfast, if it’s fine?”
“And blow all the horrors away?” He got up. “O.K. There’s nothing I’d like better.”
But there was to be no tennis for either of them on the following morning. Just before seven o’clock, heavy black clouds blew up from the east, and when Alan came down to breakfast the rain was falling in a steady downpour.
At twelve o’clock it cleared up a little and, restless from mooning about the cottage all the morning, Alan persuaded Flake to come for a walk.
“What we both need,” said Alan, as they came within sight of the Three Witches, “is a drink. Let’s go and see Jellyberry.’ At the back of his mind was the hope that he might run into Simon Gale, but that unpredictable individual was not in the bar. Mr. Jellyberry, his fat face wreathed in smiles, greeted them with his usual geniality.
“You did ought to ’ave bin in a bit earlier,” he remarked, after he had attended to Alan’s order and set before them a gin and tonic and a whiskey and ginger ale.
“Why?” asked Alan, wondering if Gale had been looking for him.
“There was a chap in a motor car looking for Mr. Veezey,” replied the landlord. “Come in to inquire the way to his ’ouse. Come all the way from Lunnon, he said.”
“That’s unusual,” said Flake. “I don’t think Mr. Veezey’s had a visitor since he’s been here. At least, if he has, nobody’s ever seen them.”
“That’s what I be thinkin’,” said Mr. Jellyberry, leaning his massive arms on the counter. “Nice-spoken chap, ’e were.”
Alan, who was unused to the intense curiosity that lurks in the heart of everyone living in an English village, was rather surprised that the visitor should have created so much interest.
“I guess even Veezey must have some friends!” he said.
“Ah,” said Mr. Jellyberry with unexpected shrewdness, “but this chap, I wouldn’t say he’d be a friend, like what you mean. ’E didn’t seem to know much about Mr. Veezey. Full o’ questions, ’e were.” He gave a rumbling chuckle. “But ’e got mighty few answers out o’ me for ’is trouble, I can tell you!”
Alan was raising his glass to his lips, when he saw the sudden change in the landlord’s face. Mr. Jellyberry leaned forward and a sepulchral whisper issued from his mouth:
“ ’E’s come back!”
A short, dark, rather stocky man, wearing a fawn raincoat, came across to the bar and ordered a pink gin. His face, normally probably quite pleasant, was marred by an expression of extreme bad temper.
“Did you find Mr. Veezey’s ’ouse, sir?” inquired the landlord as he mixed the drink.
“I might have saved myself the trouble,” retorted the dark man, frowning. “He shut the door in my face as though I was trying to sell vacuum cleaners! What’s the matt
er with the man, eh? Doesn’t he realize the value of publicity?”
Alan looked at Flake. No wonder Mr. Veezey had shut the door. The mention of the word ‘publicity’ must have struck terror to his timid soul.
“Of course we know he’s a genius,” went on the dark man, gulping half his pink gin, “but even a genius needs to keep his name before the public.”
A genius, thought Alan. Little Veezey? Surely there must be some mistake. He said, turning to the dark man:
“Excuse me, sir, but are you talking about Mr. Veezey?”
The dark man swallowed the remainder of his drink.
“Yes,” he replied. “He writes under the name of Maurice Charlton. I wanted to get a full-page interview out of him for The Planet. You’d think he’d have jumped at it, wouldn’t you?” He sighed and shook his head. “Oh, well. Queer people some of these writers. I must be off. No good wasting any more time.” He nodded briskly and hurried out.
Maurice Charlton! Alan remembered the book that Avril had been reading on the day he and Gale had called to see Ferrall about Fay Meriton, and Gale’s enthusiasm. ‘He doesn’t write. He tears off strips of life and confines them, by some flaming miracle, in the covers of a book.’
And that was Veezey! That was why he had scuttled away like a frightened rabbit when Alan had mentioned that his father was a publisher. Scared to death of fame and any sort of publicity. ‘People frighten me.’
“I guess,” said Alan, “we’d better forget what we’ve just learned, or, at any rate, keep it to ourselves.”
Mr. Jellyberry’s large forehead was wrinkled in perplexity. “Well, Mr. Boyce, sir,” he said doubtfully, “I don’t quite get the ’ang of it. But if it be that Mr. Veezey’s done something ’e’s ashamed of...”
“No, no,” put in Flake quickly. “It’s nothing like that. Mr. Veezey writes books and they’re very famous books...”
“Writes books?” said Mr. Jellyberry, in astonishment. “Well now—I always thought there was sump’n a bit queer about him—”
“He doesn’t want people to know,” said Alan. “I guess it would embarrass him if they all started staring and whispering. You know how very shy he is.”
“Ah,” said Mr. Jellyberry, his face clearing. “I see what you mean. My wife’s sister’s ’usband be a powerful shy man, an’ when ’e come back from the war, ’aving got a medal, it were planned to give ’im a welcome at the station with a band an’ all. But ’e see what were going on an’ never got out of the train. Jest stayed put an’ let himself be carried on to the next station.” He laughed. “There’s them that don’t mind a bit o’ fuss, an’ there’s them that do. I’ll be keeping me mouth tight about Mr. Veezey, sir.”
Alan left the Three Witches, hoping that he had done his best to preserve Mr. Veezey’s secret.
*
The postman delivered three letters at Bryony Cottage on the following morning. There was one for Henry Onslow-White, one for Flake, and one for Alan.
It was a hastily scrawled note from Simon Gale. ‘Be at my house, without fail, at nine o’clock tonight. You might as well be in at the death.’ That was all, and, to Alan’s surprise, it had been posted in London. That last sentence quite obviously meant that Gale was going to keep his word. He had guaranteed Hatchard that he would hand him the murderer on a plate within forty-eight hours. Alan experienced a tingling of excitement. It was tempered by a certain amount of anxiety. Gale seemed to be very cocksure that he had found the right answer, but he had admitted that there was no evidence. Had he found the evidence he lacked, and would it be sufficiently convincing? Supposing Gale should turn out to be wrong! As the morning wore on, Alan found that he was getting more and more nervous.
Just before lunch, Henry Onslow-White, who had been down to the village, returned in great excitement and with news that did nothing to alleviate Alan’s anxiety.
“What d’you think?” he announced jerkily, mopping his face. “Fay Meriton’s been murdered. Ferncross is seething with it.”
So, thought Alan, the news has leaked out. Is this going to upset Gale’s plans?
“Murdered!” exclaimed Flake in blank amazement. “Where?”
“At Shilford—in some kind of mental home,” answered her father breathlessly. “It appears she’s been there all the time. She never ran away at all.”
“I never thought she had,” remarked Mrs. Onslow-White placidly. “I’ve always said so.”
“I don’t believe it—how was she murdered?” asked Flake.
Henry Onslow-White explained in great detail and with much mopping of his face. Whoever had been responsible for disseminating the news had done so very thoroughly. The only fact that had not come out, apparently, was that Ferrall’s card had been in the box of chocolates.
“I suppose,” said Flake, looking at Alan reproachfully, “you knew all about this?”
“How should I?” he answered evasively. She didn’t press him, but he was sure that she was unconvinced.
“It’s a most extraordinary thing,” declared Henry Onslow-White. “I shouldn’t wonder if the police never find out the truth. There’s that girl and the tramp and then Meriton himself, all murdered, and now Fay...”
He discussed it throughout lunch with immense enjoyment.
The morning had been heavy and sultry with the sun obscured behind a haze of cloud, but in the early afternoon this cleared away and from a steel-blue sky the sun blazed down with almost tropical heat.
Flake, who had complained of a slight headache during the morning, went up to lie down, and Alan, concluding that it was far too hot for a walk, sprawled on the lawn in a patch of shade and listened to Henry Onslow-White’s noisy slumbers from the deck-chair under the pear-tree.
The afternoon dragged slowly by. To Alan, in a fever of impatience for nine o’clock, and his appointment with Simon Gale, the hands of his watch seemed scarcely to move at all.
Flake, looking rather pale, came down for tea. Her headache, she said, had got worse. She put it down to the thundery heat, and decided to have a cool bath and go to bed early.
Alan was relieved. He had been wondering what excuse he could make to get away and see Gale.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, and the question came so aptly on his thoughts that he started.
“I guess, when it gets cooler, I’ll probably go for a walk,” he answered. He thought she looked at him a little suspiciously, but concluded that, after all, it was possibly only his guilty conscience.
He left Bryony Cottage at half past eight. The moonlight was as brilliant as it had been on the previous night, but the heat was stifling. And away on the horizon woolly clouds were gathering.
As he neared Simon Gale’s house his pulses increased their beat and his breath came a little faster. ‘I’ll guarantee to hand you the killer on a plate...” In a short while, if Gale kept his promise, the mask would be torn from somebody’s face.
Gale was alone when he arrived and, for some reason, Alan felt disappointed. What he had expected, he scarcely knew, but it acted on him in the sense of an anti-climax.
“You’re a little early, young feller,” said Gale, who was in high spirits. “Never mind! Have some beer!” Alan hesitated.
“You’d better,” remarked Gale. “You’ll need it before the night’s over!” Without waiting for a reply, he strode across to the barrel and filled two tankards. Thrusting one into Alan’s hand, he raised the other to his lips. “Here’s to the end of all the ghosts and goblins!” he cried, and poured the contents down his throat.
“Look here,” said Alan, “what is going to happen tonight?”
Gale looked at him. There was a glitter in his eyes, and his beard seemed to quiver with suppressed excitement. He said, in an unusually quiet voice:
“Presently, young feller, you and I are going on a little excursion. And at the end of it we’re going to meet the murderer.”
“Where?” demanded Alan.
“At Sorcerer’s House.”
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Alan drank a little of his beer. There was a dryness at the back of his throat.
“How do you know he’ll be there?” he said.
“Don’t you worry about that!” cried Gale, with a sudden return to his normal boisterousness. “I’ve arranged it all, d’you see? By the four sons of Horus, Chippy’ll be handing me out medals tomorrow for making him famous!”
He really is a nice guy, thought Alan. He said: “Did you know that it’s leaked out about Fay Meriton? The whole village is full of it.”
Gale waved his free hand impatiently. “Of course I know,” he said. “I took a great deal of trouble to see that it did!” He looked at his watch. “Come on, young feller, drink up! It’s time we were off.”
The clouds had piled up thicker when they left the house. Low down on the horizon, they were black and angry. The night was very still. The leaves of the trees were unstirred by even a breath of wind, and the air was heavy with heat. As they passed Mr. Veezey’s hut, Alan remembered the surprising revelation at the Three Witches on the previous day, and told Gale.
He was intensely interested.
“So he’s Maurice Charlton, eh?” he said. “It doesn’t surprise me as much as you seem to expect. I told you once that there was intelligence behind those weak eyes of his. Have you ever thought what a queer thing the human mind is, young feller? At one end of the scale you get a flaming genius like Veezey, and at the other a cold-blooded devil like the person we’re going to meet tonight.”
He did not speak again until they reached the gate to Sorcerer’s House. Then he said, pausing with his hand on the rusty iron:
“We may have a long wait. But we couldn’t risk not getting here in plenty of time, d’you see?”
He opened the gate sufficiently wide to enable them to slip through into the neglected drive.
“Whatever you see or hear,” he whispered warningly, “keep quiet!”
It was dark here. The thick, interlacing branches of the trees formed a canopy through which little light penetrated. From the tangled mass of shrubbery on either side came a heavy odour of rotting vegetation, and there was the sound of things stirring in the bushes.
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