Malice in Wonderland

by Nicholas Blake

  “They were all in the racks this morning. I’ll swear to that,” he said.

  “You mean, when you opened the place up, or when you left?”

  The man looked still more uneasy. He admitted at last that he had not counted the rifles when he left the gallery at eleven o’clock: it was empty, then, and he had never thought of making an inspection. He held to it, though, that no rifle had been missing when he opened the gallery at ten o’clock.

  If this was true, Nigel reasoned, it must either have been taken between eleven o’clock and the time when the shot was fired, eleven-fifty, during the period when the gallery was unattended and empty; or else it had been removed by one of the people who had been using the range between ten and eleven: though it was difficult to see how anyone could have walked off with a rifle in full view of the attendant and other visitors. Then again, there was the question—why did the unknown marksman leave the rifle he had fired upon the counter and take away another one? It seemed absurd to suppose there could have been two individuals each of whom required the illicit use of a rifle on the same morning.

  The attendant said that there were no fire-arms on the counter when he left the gallery to go to the sports: he had been in a hurry to get away, and had stacked the rifles in use that morning against the inside of the counter, instead of locking them up in the rack. Everything, Nigel reflected, had been made very easy for the criminal. He said:

  “Could anyone have known that you had left the gallery unlocked this morning? You didn’t mention it to anyone?”

  “Certainly not, Mr. Strangeways. I didn’t realise myself that I’d forgotten to lock up. I’ve only recently been put on to the gallery, and I’m afraid I’ve not got into the way of things yet.”

  “Who else has keys for it?”

  “There’s one in the office. And the games-organiser keeps one of his own. That’s all.”

  Nigel finally asked the man if he knew the names of any of the visitors who had patronised the shooting-range that morning. It turned out that he knew several, of whom Paul Perry was one. Nigel then went up to the office, where he ascertained that one of the keys of the gallery was on its usual hook. The other key Teddy Wise produced from his pocket when Nigel approached him on the sports-ground. Unless someone was lying, this eliminated the possibility that the criminal had borrowed or stolen one of these keys in order to obtain a rifle, and had then found the gallery unlocked. Whoever had shot at Captain Wise had done it impromptu, tempted by the open gallery. This was what Nigel had presupposed; for, although the manager used the “Captain’s bridge” quite frequently, the criminal could not have relied upon his being there—and at the only point of the balcony where he would be a target for a shot from the gallery—at that particular hour of the day.

  But the problem of the two rifles still remained. Nigel’s brain was hammering away at it as he strolled round the sports-ground, watching Teddy Wise and his assistants take a roll-call. Other members of the staff were going the round of the chalets, the other buildings, the beach and the grounds. By lunch-time Teddy was able to give him a report. Apart from one large party which had gone off on a charabanc trip, all the residents could account satisfactorily for their whereabouts at the time the shot was fired—all the residents, with the exception of Paul Perry, Albert Morley and Miss Gardiner. The two latter had been alone at eleven-fifty, they said: Miss Gardiner writing letters in her chalet, Mr. Morley walking away from the sports-ground to the spot where Nigel had met him. Albert volunteered in addition that Paul Perry had gone for a long walk: Paul was certainly not to be found in the camp, nor did he return for lunch.

  After lunch, Nigel sought out Sally Thistlethwaite. Paul had not told her where he was going for his walk: in fact, she said, he had snubbed her when she suggested coming with him. No, she did not know at what time he had started out. Her father, however, reported having seen Perry walking down the drive at about half-past ten, away from the camp. Nigel took Mr. Thistlethwaite aside—he did not wish Sally to realise the object of his questions—and told him about the shot that had been fired at Captain Wise.

  “At least our young friend cannot be held responsible for this culminating outrage,” opined Mr. Thistlethwaite. “There is no question but that he was setting out for his walk when I saw him.”

  “What proof have you of that? He might have made a short detour and returned via that clump of trees above the shooting-gallery.”

  “One does not don a gaberdine, sir,” retorted Mr. Thistlethwaite, slightly nettled, “in order to make short detours.”

  “A gaberdine?”

  “He was wearing a loose, grey raincoat.”

  “Oh dear,” said Nigel. “A raincoat for a long walk on a hot day like this? If he’d been carrying it—but wearing it: don’t you see?—if it was the kind of coat that has slits beside the pockets, he could have been holding the rifle hidden beneath it, in a vertical position. I don’t at all like the sound of this.”

  He liked it still less when he had interviewed the shooting-range attendant again. The man said he had observed that Perry was wearing a loose raincoat when he entered the gallery soon after ten o’clock: he had not noticed him leave. The evidence certainly suggested that it was Perry who had taken the missing rifle. But Nigel was still faced with the difficulty that the shooting of Captain Wise could not have been planned beforehand. The only possible theory which could at present account for the facts was that Perry had worked in collaboration with the actual marksman: he had taken the rifle for himself or his accomplice to use whenever occasion offered; but the accomplice, happening to be in the gallery when Captain Wise appeared on the balcony, had taken pot-luck with a rifle that was handy. And that theory is a nice tissue of coincidences and begged questions, thought Nigel disgustedly.

  Until Paul Perry returned to the camp—always supposing that he did return, there was little that Nigel could do. He told the shooting-gallery attendant to remain at his post and watch out for any of the people who had used the range in the morning: the person who had taken the rifle might try to replace it unobserved. He then tested the other rifle for fingerprints: as he rather expected, it was so covered with them as to render it almost useless for purposes of identification.

  Nigel’s next move was somewhat in the nature of a forlorn hope. He rang up the Applestock Gazette, and asked for the senior reporter. Mr. Leeson admitted that the information about the new Wonderland outrages, which had appeared in the Daily Post this morning, was communicated to him over the phone yesterday. As far as he could tell, it had been the same voice speaking.

  “Will you do me a favour?” asked Nigel. “If this Mad Hatter rings you up again with another story, I want you to hold him in play, and call me on another of your lines. Wonderland has two or three lines, so you’ll be able to get through all right. When you’ve called me, keep the Mad Hatter talking as long as possible.”

  Mr. Leeson agreed to do this. Nigel then went to the office, where he found Captain Wise in bandages but a more cheerful frame of mind, and told him about the trap he had laid to catch the Mad Hatter.

  “I’d rather you kept this quite confidential. Don’t tell even your brother or Miss Jones. I shall be about the place. If a call comes through for me from the Applestock Gazette, I shall go at once to one of the telephone-boxes downstairs. Whoever is in the other will be the Mad Hatter. Of course, we can’t bank much on this—the chap’ll be very foolish if he doesn’t suspect that some such trap might be laid for him.

  “What’s to stop him ringing up the Gazette from the nearest village or an A.A. box?

  “Nothing. But, if we hear he’s ringing them up, and there’s no one in the public boxes here, we’ll know it’s one of the people who’s not in the camp grounds. Almost everyone’ll be at the gymkhana this afternoon, won’t they?”

  Almost everyone was. Captain Wise, his bandaged head stimulating a wonderful variety of rumours amongst the residents, who had not yet been told about the shooting, sat in a deck-chair
on the edge of the sports-ground, Miss Jones beside him. Teddy Wise was very much to the fore, organising each of the events, jollying the competitors along, and giving a humorous commentary through his megaphone. The sports were the most popular item in the week’s entertainment, and everyone seemed to be there. The charabanc party had returned. Only Paul Perry was still missing from the fold.

  When the competitors for the three-legged race moved off to the start, Mr. Thistlethwaite drew Nigel away from the spectators. Indicating Mr. Morley, who was tying his leg to Sally’s with a handkerchief, he said:

  “You informed me, sir, that Mr. Morley was in the vicinity of the shooting-gallery this morning. Are you satisfied that the shot was intended for Captain Wise?”

  “Hallo, hallo! What’s your idea, Mr. Thistlethwaite?”

  “Was Captain Wise facing towards the gallery when he was shot?”

  “No, he had his back to it.”

  “The shape of his head is markedly similar to his brother’s.”

  “I see. You suggest Albert Morley shot him by mistake for Teddy? Motive, presumably, being revenge for Teddy’s having so often made a fool of him?”

  “One can try even the most patient temper too far. The effort to repress a natural indignation may breed a hideous rancour,” Mr. Thistlethwaite replied oracularly.

  “You mean Albert Morley is the Mad Hatter?”

  “I have suspected all along, sir, that these practical jokes were intended to culminate in a graver crime—a crime which might appear to be a practical joke of unintentionally fatal issue.”

  “But you told me Morley had an alibi for the period when the dead animals were being put about.”

  “I genuinely believed it, sir. In fact, I rallied Mr. Morley on the subject, telling him that he and I, at least, were now above suspicion. Observing him just now, however, as he tied himself and my daughter with that handkerchief, I was reminded by the process of thought-association—with which you are doubtless familiar—of something that had entirely slipped my memory. A handkerchief. It is the cause, my soul, it is the cause. To be brief, some six or seven minutes before the interval in the cabaret performance, I found myself requiring a handkerchief. Mrs. Thistlethwaite always keeps a spare one for me in her reticule. She was sitting apart from me, close to the side-door by the stage, as she had just returned from assisting Sally with her costume and make-up. I moved to the front and sat down beside her, not wishing to return to my own seat since Sally’s number was just about to begin. When her turn was over, I went back and found Mr. Morley sitting where I had left him. But there are six or seven minutes unaccounted for.”

  Mr. Thistlethwaite made a consequential gesture, as if offering Nigel the six or seven minutes on a silver tray.

  “That’s interesting,” said Nigel after a pause. “There are two difficulties about your theory, though. First, if the shooting was the intended climax of a prepared series of outrages, how do you account for its being so impromptu? He couldn’t have known beforehand that the shooting-gallery would be open and empty at the very moment when his enemy appeared on the balcony.”

  “Indeed no, sir. He may have planned some other method of attack on Mr. Edward Wise. Or he may just have been awaiting the inspiration of a favourable moment. In either case, it is not unreasonable to suppose that, happening to be by the shooting-gallery, finding the time, the place, and the hated one all together, so to say, he would avail himself of the gift fortune had thrown into his lap. You mentioned a second objection, sir?”

  “Yes. And if you can get round that, Mr. Thistlethwaite, you’ll qualify as the boa-constrictor king. What do you say to the fact that Albert Morley is——”

  “Excuse me, sir. May I have a word with you?”

  It was the shooting-gallery attendant. Breathlessly he announced that Paul Perry had just passed by the entrance of the gallery, glanced in, and finding it empty except for the attendant, had passed on towards the cliffs. He was still wearing the grey raincoat, the man said, and looked very pale.

  Nigel hurried away from the sports-ground towards the cliff. When they came in sight of it, there was no sign of Paul Perry.

  “Don’t think he’s chucked himself over?” asked the attendant, not without a noticeable quickening of interest.

  Nigel lay down on the cliff edge and peered over to his right, where the landslip lay, beckoning his companion to do the same.

  “Can you see him? My eyes are not too good.”

  “Just a minute … There! He’s behind that big rhododendron bush, half-way down the path.”

  “Hey! Perry! Stop a minute!” Nigel shouted.

  His companion could see Perry start, make as if to run down the path, slip and fall, then after a few moments stand up again and begin climbing back towards them.

  When they met him, Nigel was shocked by his appearance. His face was leaden grey, as if he were in the last stages of exhaustion: his eyes showed the meek despair of an animal which has been so long in the trap that it almost welcomes the hunter who brings it the coup de grace. Yet there was something in the carriage of his head, the stiffness of the body beneath the raincoat, that seemed indefinably to contradict all this.

  “Where’ve you been all day?” Nigel asked. “Do you know that Captain Wise has been shot—with a Winchester rifle from the shooting-gallery?”

  Paul Perry’s reaction to this was odd enough. “Nonsense,” he said, huskily but with a certain authority. “Not Captain Wise.” Then his eyes seemed to realise the point of Nigel’s questions, to turn gradually from incredulity back to despair again, and from despair to the glazed look of insentience; and, muttering, “Oh, this is too much,” he swayed forward and pitched into Nigel’s arms.

  “Go and look further down the path. Near where you first saw him. The rifle may be there somewhere,” Nigel commanded.

  In a couple of minutes the attendant returned. “Here it is, sir! Found it pushed in underneath the rhododendron bush—he hadn’t time to hide it properly—must’ve been going down to chuck it in the sea. It’s the one, all right. Magazine emptied, too. Wonder what he used the other bullets for.”

  Silently Nigel beckoned the man close and pointed to the body, now limp, which had held itself together so stiffly under the raincoat.

  “God’s truth!” the attendant exclaimed. “Tried to do himself in.”

  Beneath the raincoat, Paul Perry’s clothes were soaked in blood, all over his left shoulder, over his heart, and down his left side.

  XVI

  “WON’T YOU AT least tell us where you went for your walk?” Nigel was asking patiently four hours later. He sat on one side of Paul Perry’s bed, Dr. Holford on the other: the doctor, who examined Perry’s wound when they had carried him back to the camp, declared it was not dangerous; a bullet had passed through the upper part of the arm, and the patient had lost a good deal of blood, but he should soon recover. The doctor was present at this interview to ensure that his patient should not be too exhausted by it.

  Paul Perry, though still white in the face, had clearly benefited by his short sleep, and of the two it was Nigel who looked the more exhausted. He repeated his question.

  “Sorry. My lips are sealed, though,” replied Paul with a trace of his old jauntiness.

  “Very well. If you won’t, you won’t. I can only say that you make things look bad for yourself. You remove a rifle from the shooting-gallery, having previously taken care to inform two people at least that you were going for a long walk. An hour and a half later, Captain Wise is shot. At three o’clock, when you know that everyone will be at the sports, you sneak back, intending to replace the rifle. You find the attendant alone in the gallery, so you go on down the cliffs, meaning to chuck the rifle into the sea instead. Don’t you realise—it’ll take a lot of explaining away.”

  “Explain away, then. You’re the detective, not me.”

  “How did you come by that wound?”

  “The rifle went off by accident and my shoulder happened to be in
the way.”

  “That’s not true. The wound was made by a weapon of larger calibre—a heavy revolver, probably.”

  For the first time Paul Perry’s passive resistance showed signs of cracking; the glitter in his eyes was dulled, but he remained silent. Nigel tried another angle of attack.

  “Do you still assert that the Mad Hatter and Old Ishmael are one and the same person?”

  Perry’s mouth began to twitch and jerk: he made a convulsive movement, as if to raise himself in the bed, and fainted.

  “Now, what on earth——?” murmured Nigel.

  “That will have to be all for the present,” Dr. Holford said, bending over his patient. The next moment he was startled by a loud exclamation from Nigel— “Oh, what a fool I am! Kick me three times round the camp!”

  Nigel was out of the chalet, running towards the telephone-booths in the main building. There he rang up the Applestock police; but before he had got the number, he put down the receiver again, muttering, “No, it’ll take all night to explain.”

  He pelted up the stairs and found Teddy Wise in his room, just about to go down to dinner.

  “I want half a dozen men to come up at once to the hermit’s wood. Can you manage?”

  “What’s this? Some new rudery taken place?”

  “I’ll explain as we go. You’ll come, too?”

  “O. K., boss.”

  “Have you a revolver?”

  “Lummy, it’s like that, is it? Yes, I’ve my brother’s old gat tucked away somewhere.” Teddy rummaged in a drawer, produced a heavy service revolver and loaded it. Five minutes later, followed by six members of the staff armed with heavy sticks, they were on their way up to the wood.

  When they had arrived there, Nigel distributed the six men round the edge of the wood.

  “Stay where you are, unless you hear me shout. If anyone sees him come out of the wood, give a yell. Be careful how you tackle him: he’s armed. If he gets away, follow him at a distance. I don’t expect he’ll try to break through, though.”