Sorcerer's House

by Gerald Verner

  “She fell violently, hell for leather, head over heels, in love with him.

  “If you can hate so deeply that it becomes an obsession, you can do the opposite—if you’ve got a nature like Flake’s. Am that’s what her feeling for Meriton became. But, once again, Fay was first. Flake knew that she wasn’t in love with Meriton—that she only married him to score once more over her.

  “And the acorn of hatred flourished into a full-grown oak!

  “I told you that was what the whole case hinged on—why Fay ever married Meriton. From that moment Flake began searching for a means to split it up.”

  “Surely,” said Alan, almost inaudibly, “she could have done it some other way?”

  “Maybe she could, young feller,” said Gale, “but, d’you see, she wanted something that would finish Fay for ever, not only in Meriton’s eyes, but in the eyes of the whole world. And she didn’t have to wait long for an idea. It was, practically, thrown in her lap. By all the Holy Saints, can you imagine her hugging herself when she found out about Fay’s constant visits to her hide-out in the Locked Room at Sorcerer’s House? Fay, the paranoiac, who lived in a world of illusion... And might be capable of anything with that insane maggot eating into her brain. If it were possible to make people believe that Fay was a homicidal maniac? Even Meriton’s devotion wouldn’t be proof against that—or so she thought. Fay would be an object of horror and disgust. So the plan matured and, biding her time, she killed the tramp.”

  He paused to drink some beer. Nobody spoke. Hatchard was staring into his tankard and gently rotating it. Major Chipingham frowned down at his fingernails. Alan shivered, not entirely from the chill of dawn which seemed to have suddenly crept into the big, untidy room.

  “She killed the tramp,” Simon Gale went on, “and nothing happened! No outcry, no arrest! Can you imagine how she felt? And she couldn’t do anything about it. It must have given her an awful shock when she learned that the body had been found under the window of the Long Room when she had left it by the front door. But it was nothing to the shock she got, later, when she killed that poor girl, Hunks, and the body wasn’t found at all! That must’ve been paralysing! And on the top of it Fay disappears, leaving a letter saying that she’s run away. Flake must have been in the devil of a stew, hey? The amazing thing is that she managed to carry on behaving normally.”

  “It’s incredible!” grunted the Chief Constable. “A young girl like that...”

  “You don’t understand, Chippy,” cried Gale. “You’ve got an old-fashioned idea of youth. Youth is cruel and relentless unless it’s balanced by a strong sense of the difference between right and wrong. The old religious teaching helped to do that. Left in its natural state...” He snapped his fingers. “You can blame Henry and Mrs. Onslow-White, if you like. Flake was spoilt as child.”

  “She must have been mad, sir,” said Hatchard, with his eyes still fixed on the swirling liquid in the tankard.

  “No, no,” said Gale, shaking his head, “she was nothing of the sort! She was, and is, cool-headed and intelligent. But, d’ye see, she’s cold-bloodedly self-centred. There’s nothing mad about her, except that overwhelming hatred of Fay and her obsession for Paul Meriton.”

  “And yet, sir, she killed him,” said Hatchard.

  “She killed him because she had to,” retorted Gale. “And it nearly broke her heart. You saw, yourself, what effect it had on her. Look here, try and put yourself in her place. For nearly two years she lived in a fever of uncertainty. The whole of her precious plan had gone wrong. Fay had gone, and she didn’t know where. She guessed that Meriton had had something to do with the fact that Hunks’s body hadn’t been found, but she didn’t know what. The strain must have been almost unbearable. And to make things worse, Meriton began to get suspicious.”

  “How?” asked Major Chipingham tersely.

  “I don’t suppose we shall ever know, exactly,” answered Gale. “But I believe Fay had told him about that childish effort of Flake’s, when the school-friend had to have stitches in her head, and it started him wondering. Remember, he wanted desperately to believe in Fay’s innocence. I think he began asking a lot awkward questions, and Flake saw, not only her scheme tumbling about her ears, but herself in the position she had planned for Fay. It may have been her idea, or it may have been Meriton’s, that meeting at Sorcerer’s House. I’m inclined to believe it was Meriton’s. He had to have it out with her and it was the one place d’you see, where he was certain no one would see or overhear them. And what must have happened was that Flake completely lost her head. She gave herself away.”

  “How?” asked Major Chipingham again.

  Gale shrugged his shoulders. He drank deeply from his tankard. He said, frowning:

  “How can anybody tell what exactly took place at that interview? I’ll tell you what I think she did. The only thing that would have made Meriton sure. She inadvertently mentioned the girl Hunks. Now, d’you see, only Meriton, the Ferralls, and Fay knew anything about that. The only other person who could have known was the person who really killed her. And for two years Fay, whom Meriton practically worshipped, had been shut up in a mental home for something she hadn’t done. Can you imagine how he felt? Can you imagine his rage and horror and what he threatened to do! She had to kill him, d’you see? It was the only thing she could do to save herself.”

  “She didn’t follow me, that night,” said Alan, speaking almost to himself. “She was already there.”

  “That’s right, young feller,” said Gale. “She’d just toppled Meriton’s body out the window of the Long Room and left the house, when she heard you coming up the drive. She hid in the bushes, waited until you’d found the body, and then pretended that she’d followed you.”

  There was a silence. In it, Major Chipingham cleared his throat. Alan saw a vivid picture of the rain-soaked drive and the light of the torch wavering on wet bushes. And Flake’s voice coming out of the darkness, ‘Is that you, Mr. Boyce?’

  “What about the footprints, sir?” Hatchard, gently rubbing the bald spot on the top of his head, broke the silence. “In the dust on the staircase. They were too big for a woman’s.”

  “Remember what sort of a night it was?” answered Gale. He whirled round on Alan. “What shoes was she wearing when you saw her?”

  Alan remembered. He remembered everything about that night.

  “Crepe-soled tennis shoes,” he said.

  “I’ll bet she started out with Wellingtons over ‘em,” cried Gale. “An old pair of Henry’s, probably—and she ditched ’em before she met you. Somewhere under the dead leaves in that tangled shrubbery, eh? There are no flies on that girl, you know. She’d think of the dust, and what sort of footprints she’d left.”

  “H’m,” grunted the Chief Constable. “But she didn’t go there with the intention of killing Meriton?”

  “She didn’t know what was going to happen, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be pleasant, d’you see?” replied Gale. “She was in the Long Room at Sorcerer’s House on the night before. When Avril saw the light. That was probably when she put the banister handy—just in case. Oh, yes, she’d take precautions.”

  “Like she did over the parcel of chocolates?” remarked Hatchard, nodding several times. “That was clever, sir. Posting it through the wide slit of the post-box at Barnsford that was intended for newspapers and magazines. Made it impossible to trace the sender by inquiring at the post office.”

  “And Ferrall’s card,” said Gale. “So that Fay wouldn’t wonder who’d sent ’em.”

  “How did she know where to send them?” asked Alan. “If she didn’t know what had happened to Fay?”

  “But she did, d’you see,” broke in Gale. “I’m quite sure that she learned, somehow, possibly from Mrs. Horly, about Meriton’s periodical absences, and followed him. But it took her nearly two years to find out.”

  “Well,” said Major Chipingham grudgingly, “you seem to have worked it out pretty thoroughly. Can’
t understand what first put you on to her. Should never have thought of her, myself.”

  “I don’t suppose you would, Chippy,” said Gale, grinning. “Thinking was never your strong point! I was looking for a motive, d’you see, that’d cover the killing of the tramp and the girl, as well as Meriton, and I was flummoxed. I couldn’t find one, until we were talking about that poor devil of a waitress, Hunks, and I said the principal motives for murder were gain and hatred. And suddenly I got it! Somebody had hated Fay Meriton so much that they’d planned those two murders for the sole purpose of making people believe she’d done ’em. If that really was th’ truth, and Meriton had found out, then the motive for his murder was clear, and it linked up with the other two, d’you see? Th question was, who hated her and why? I spent the greater part c the night sitting and thinking. Boyce had told me about th’ incident of the little girl and the stitches, which Flake had told him. Well, that fitted, if Fay had killed the other two. The murder of the tramp and Hunks was an extension of the same method d’you see? But, supposing Fay had never hit the child. Supposing it was a story that had been made up by Flake. By all the signs of the Zodiac, that put a different complexion on it! I began to remember a lot of odds and ends—little things that didn’t mean much by themselves, but, when you put ‘em all together, add up to a hell of a lot. They began to form a pattern, d’you see? I’ll admit that I had an advantage, Chippy, over you and Hatchard. I knew these people inside out. Flake had been very clever at concealing her real feelings, but she hadn’t been entirely successful. From things she’d said, now and again, I knew that she actively disliked Fay.”

  Yes, thought Alan, she couldn’t quite conceal that.

  “I knew, also, d’you see, that she’d had a youthful passion for Meriton,” continued Gale. “Marshalling together all these stray bits and pieces I began to build up a theory—the theory you saw justified at Sorcerer’s House a few hours ago.”

  “Damn it all!” exploded the Chief Constable. “You had no evidence at all! Nothing concrete! And yet you had the infernal audacity to—to...” He tried to find a suitable word to express his disgust, and spluttered into silence.

  “Now, now,” cried Gale, “you’re not quite right you know, Chippy. I hadn’t enough evidence to satisfy you and Hatchard, but I had enough to satisfy me, d’you see? I talked to the old school mistress, here, and I had a long telephone conversation with the headmistress of Longdean, where Flake and Fay went, after. And I got the same story—Flake was always just lagging behind Fay in everything, with Fay poking sly fun at her because of it. There was one thing I wanted to make sure about. I wanted to satisfy myself, as near as I could, that Meriton hadn’t given Flake any encouragement in thinking that, with Fay out of the way, there would be a chance to step in. I was pretty sure he hadn’t, and, after Boyce and I paid our visit to Ferncross Lodge, I knew I was right. Meriton had never had eyes for any other woman, poor devil! You only had to look at that bedroom, just as she’d left it, and those carefully preserved letters in the bureau, to know that. I told you, young feller, that I was looking for something that wasn’t there, eh? And then came Fay’s death from the poisoned chocolates, and that clinched the matter, so far as I was concerned. It was a woman’s method, d’you see.”

  “I wonder how she got hold of the cyanide, sir?” muttered Inspector Hatchard thoughtfully.

  “Wasps!” said Gale. “There was a nest of ’em in the garden at Bryony Cottage. Henry got hold of some cyanide from one of the farmers early in the summer to get rid of ’em. Probably there was a bit left over. I remembered that, and it was another pointer to Flake, d’you see.”

  “It wouldn’t have been enough on its own, sir,” said Hatchard, shaking his head.

  “No, no, everything had to be watertight and copper- bottomed,” cried Gale. “There wasn’t enough real evidence to convict a one-legged sailor. So I had to take a chance and play out my little show. By the orgies of Bacchus, I was worried If Flake had ignored that letter, I was sunk.”

  “What,” asked Alan, “was the letter?”

  “Ah-ha,” said Gale, rubbing his hands together in great delight. “It was a Machiavellian effort, young feller! I got pal of mine in London to copy Fay’s handwriting. It told Flake, d’you see, exactly what she’d done, as though Fay knew all about it. And it asked her to come and see Fay in the room at Sorcerer’s House that night. I’d started the gossip in the village about Fay’s death from the chocolates, and I counted on the fact that Flake would be so confused, as to what had really happened, that she’d have to come and find out. I got hold of an actress I knew, who was Fay’s build, and sufficiently like her, with a dark red wig, to pass in th’ dim candlelight of that room, put her in Fay’s dress, which Hatchard got for me, and coached her in what she was to say. I didn’t tell her that Flake would probably make a murderous attack on her. I thought we could look after that. Poor Miriam, she was so scared I don’t suppose she’ll ever speak to me again.’ He scowled suddenly. “I was scared, too, until I heard tha buzzer we rigged up, Hatchard. I was afraid Flake might be sensible enough not to turn up, hey?”

  “The whole thing was damned risky,” growled Major Chipingham disapprovingly. “If you’d told me what you were up to—”

  “You’d have stopped it, eh, Chippy?” said Gale. “And Flake would have got away with it. As it is,” he added, suddenly serious “unless the defence can convince a jury she’s insane, which is absolute bosh and rubbish, she’ll hang.”

  *

  Miss Flappit’s decrepit bicycle rattled to a shrill and squeaky halt. Miss Flappit’s angular and wasp-waisted figure dismounted from the saddle. Miss Flappit greeted her bosom friend, Miss Cringe, in excited falsetto.

  “My dear,” she said, “how nice to see you. I am about to do my morning shopping. Where are you going?”

  Miss Cringe admitted that she was about to do her morning shopping, too, which, considering she was carrying a basket, was very obvious.

  “You know,” remarked Miss Flappit, eyeing her critically through her thick spectacles, “I don’t think you’re looking quite so well this morning, dear.”

  Miss Cringe, who knew that this was the opening gambit preparatory to telling her that she looked old, smiled with the honeyed sweetness of an alligator about to devour a tasty morsel.

  “I’m feeling quite well, dear,” she replied. “Are your eyes giving you any trouble? They really look so very strained. Perhaps you need stronger glasses at your age?”

  Miss Flappit, on the point of delivering a devastating reply, which might have endangered a beautiful friendship, suddenly found her attention distracted. On the other side of the road she saw Alan Boyce and Avril Ferrall. In the joyous anticipation of being able to retail a choice tit-bit of gossip, her annoyance was forgotten—at least temporarily.

  “They are always together, these days,” she said, significantly, leaning nearer to her friend.

  “He went to stay with Doctor Ferrall and his sister, after that dreadful scandal over the Onslow-White gal, didn’t he?” said Miss Cringe. “That was a truly shocking thing.” She clucked her disapproval.

  Alan and Avril, quite oblivious to the fact that they were being discussed, passed by. His hand touched hers and, almost unconsciously, their fingers interlocked...

  “Did you see that, dear?” whispered Miss Cringe breathlessly.

  Miss Flappit’s eyes glinted. She drew in her breath almost ecstatically.

  “You should have seen what I saw last night!” she declared. She whispered in her friend’s ear.

  Miss Cringe’s small and reddish-rimmed eyes goggled.

  “No!” she said.

  “Yes!” said Miss Flappit.

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