Malice in Wonderland

by Nicholas Blake

  “I should jolly well hope not,” Sally cried indignantly. “I think he’s marvellous. And, what’s more, I’m going to tell him so.”

  “Not to-night, I shouldn’t, dear. I expect the poor young man needs a good sleep,” said her mother.

  “When did you first—ah—tumble to the significance of his enigmatic conduct?” Mr. Thistlethwaite inquired.

  “There was a queer look, behind the fear and exhaustion that showed on the surface—a look of confidence, exhilaration, I can’t quite put a name to it. The fact was, he’d made good, and the consciousness of it kept breaking through his nightmare. Then I asked him a question about the Mad Hatter and Old Ishmael, and he fainted right off. It came to me in a flash: he looked guilty, yet somehow set up—a new man; he had tried to hide the rifle; he had heard us talking about espionage in connection with the hermit; he fainted as soon as Old Ishmael’s name was mentioned. Everything linked up into coherent theory. So I rushed off to the wood with a posse.”

  There was a long silence. Finally Sally jumped up from the bed, an extraordinary light in her eyes. There was a kind of expectant, radiant certainty about her, as in the air when the four quarters have chimed and the great bell is on the point of striking the hour.

  “But, don’t you see?” she cried, “what a fool I am not to have thought of it before! This proves Paul’s not the Mad Hatter. Daddy told me Captain Wise had been shot at this morning. Well, Paul was up in that wood. He couldn’t have fired that shot.”

  “No, he couldn’t have fired that shot,” said Nigel slowly. There was no point, after all, in dashing her hopes so soon. Besides, she was probably right. Theoretically, of course, Paul Perry might have shot Captain Wise and then gone up to establish an alibi in the hermit’s wood: but the notion of a criminal shooting one man in order to obtain an alibi for the attempted murder of another, though a pleasant enough conceit, could not be seriously entertained. Theoretically, again, there was no proof that the shooting of Captain Wise had been the Mad Hatter’s work; it had an impromptu appearance quite different from the previous outrages: therefore Paul Perry might still be considered leading candidate for the rôle of the Mad Hatter. But here again logic got one nowhere.

  Back in his chalet, Nigel examined inch by inch the case he had constructed against the Mad Hatter. Everything fitted in neatly except the shot that had been fired at Captain Wise. He was still dispiritedly trying to solve that mystery a quarter of an hour later when Mr. Thistlethwaite entered. He had noticed Nigel’s evasion of the issue when Sally had said that Paul could no longer be suspected of the practical jokes. They talked about this for a little. Then Mr. Thistlethwaite said:

  “When you were called away from the sports, sir, you were just about to tell me why Mr. Morley could not have been the author of the outrage against Captain Wise.”

  “The answer is, he’s the world’s worst shot. Didn’t you hear about the little episode between him and Teddy Wise in the shooting-gallery?”

  “No.”

  Nigel related it. “If he couldn’t hit those targets at a range of twenty yards, he certainly couldn’t have pipped Captain Wise at a hundred and fifty.”

  “It might have been a lucky shot.”

  “But if he really wanted to kill Captain Wise—or Teddy, assuming that he mistook the one for the other—he’d never have adopted a method so risky to himself, knowing that he was such a rotten marksman. It’d never occur to him to try it.”

  “Perhaps he’s really a good shot, and has been concealing the fact with a view to this crime.”

  “If that was so, and all the practical jokes were just leading up to the shooting of Wise, the crime was premeditated. And if the crime was premeditated, Morley wouldn’t have been relying on the attendant forgetting to lock up the gallery this morning, and Wise appearing on the balcony. Nor would he have walked towards me out of that clump of trees, thus establishing himself as the only person near enough the place to have fired the shot, when he could easily have got right away by then.”

  “His behaviour was certainly paradoxical to a degree.”

  “You’ve said it. He’s the spanner in the whole works. I’ve a strong feeling that it must have been he who fired the shot, and yet all logic is against it. Look here, Mr. Thistlethwaite, are you in a hurry for your beddy-byes? I’d like to outline the case to you, and see if a fresh mind can draw different conclusions from my own.”

  Mr. Thistlethwaite expressed himself agreeable to this. Nigel lit a cigarette and ran through the case, giving his companion a detailed outline but hinting at no theories.

  When he had finished, Mr. Thistlethwaite kept silent for some time. Finally, studying the signet ring on his left hand, he said:

  “This indeed puts a new complexion on the matter. I am compelled radically to revise my own ideas. On the strength of the facts stated by you, sir, I find myself looking in quite a different direction for the culprit. I find my eye focused upon Captain Wise and his charming secretary.”

  Mr. Thistlethwaite contrived to focus his eye upon these two individuals and at the same time give Nigel a shrewd glance. Nigel’s expression, however, remained interested and non-committal.

  “On what grounds?” he asked.

  “First and foremost, my dear sir, opportunity——” Mr. Thistlethwaite mouthed the word as if it were a juicy plum. “They knew the field of operations intimately: they knew the dispositions of their own sentries, and thus could easily avoid them whenever it was time for the Mad Hatter to prowl again. Let us enumerate the manifestations in due order.”

  Nigel lit another cigarette and, leaning his head back on his chair, blew smoke up at the ceiling.

  “First, the voice over the loud-speakers at the dance. Jones was admittedly close to the microphone; Wise could have slipped in through the side door. According to his brother, he is a good impersonator: it was needed for the squeaky tones of the Mad Hatter and the telephone calls to the Applestock Gazette that he should dissemble his voice.

  “Second, the duckings. Wise was in the water: he was one of the first to reach Sally after she’d gone under the second time. To divert any possible suspicion, he pretended later to have been ducked himself. Meanwhile the woman Jones posts up the Mad Hatter notice at the same time as the ordinary routine notices.

  “Third, the two treacle episodes. Wise and Jones do not take their meals with the residents. They had the best opportunity for slipping, unnoticed or at least unchallenged, into the sports pavilion and the concert hall. At this point I must interpolate a reference to Wise’s refusal at the games committee to accept the suggestion that the residents should aid in the search for the Mad Hatter, and his subsequent reluctance to call in the police.”

  Nigel opened one eye, and shut it again.

  “For so efficient an organiser, he seemed remarkably half-hearted at the start in the measures he took. Fourth comes the matter of Mr. Perry’s questionnaire. Strange that Captain Wise should allow him to take it without even inquiring into his bona fides. Strange, unless he saw in the questionnaire a golden opportunity for keeping his finger, if I may so put it, on the pulse of the patient he was gradually poisoning. Remember Miss Jones’s suggestion for an additional question, ‘What single practical joke could you imagine playing which would most disorganise the life of the camp?’ The accomplices hoped to gain some useful hints from the answers to that. The fact that Perry was allowed to see these answers might also be turned to advantage in the event of their wishing to make somebody a scapegoat.

  “And Perry it was whom, later, they tried to implicate. Jones hints to you his interest in primitive initiation rites. Wise is conveniently at your side when you find the clue under Perry’s chalet: if you had not found it, he would doubtless have contrived some method of making you find it. And it was he who called attention to the smell on the piece of wire.”

  “‘Later,’” said Nigel. “That’s the difficulty, isn’t it? Why should they not implicate Perry at the start? Or alternatively, why
should they try and throw the blame on anyone at that point, when nothing had happened to incriminate themselves? Or had it? Have you an answer to that?”

  “Not on the spur of the moment, sir,” replied Mr. Thistlethwaite with dignity. “But answer there doubtless is. To proceed: the incident of the poisoned dog points in no special direction. Suffice it to say that here again the deed could have been done more safely by Wise or Jones than by any resident wandering unauthorised to Pets’ Corner in the small hours. It profitably raises, however, the question of means: all the paraphernalia of the practical jokes—strychnine, treacle, fireworks, and the rest. Were the miscreant one of the visitors, there would be a real danger of these things being discovered in his chalet, by a maid or some other visitor. The chalets, indeed, were searched on one occasion, but none of these articles was found. How much easier for Wise and Jones to keep them concealed.

  “Next we come to the macabre episode of the dead animals. I will only touch upon this lightly, contenting myself with pointing out that, though the man Wise was present throughout the cabaret show and in evidence at the interval, his accomplice, Jones, who was talking with Perry at the beginning of the interval, was called away to the telephone. From whom did that call come,” boomed Mr. Thistlethwaite impressively, “and did she, in fact, ever answer it? The question, in my view, is linked up significantly with that of motive. I will now proceed to deal with the question of motive in some detail. It is abundantly substantiated, in the first place, that——”

  A sharp snore broke from Nigel, so sharp that it woke him up.

  “You were saying, Mr. Thistlethwaite——?”

  “It will keep, sir. No, pray do not apologise. It is I who should apologise, for my thoughtlessness in keeping you up after so arduous a day. I can only plead that I was absorbed: a romantic at heart, I have never before met with the romance of crime, except in the pages of detective fiction, and——”

  “‘The romance of crime!’” Nigel suddenly exclaimed. “Oh, thank you for those words, dear Mr. Thistlethwaite! They’ve given me the clue—the key to the one lock that’s been defeating me. To-morrow, if you will, you shall repeat your theory to a select little audience. You shall help to unveil the Mad Hatter.”

  PART III

  Mr. Strangeways Takes Tea

  XVII

  THE NEXT MORNING, Friday, the weather broke. A dismal haar came up from the sea, shrouding the camp in its grey mist that damped the spirits and reminded many visitors of the dingy towns to which to-morrow they must return. There was, perhaps, a certain anti-climax, too, in the fact that last night the Mad Hatter had done nothing: nerves had been strung up to expect some new attack, and in the morning they still quivered—tired but unsatisfied. After breakfast the residents wandered about rather aimlessly. The finals of the various tournaments—tennis, bowls, clock-golf—should have been taking place this morning, but the thick mist would render most of them impossible. Yet it seemed a cruel waste of the last day of vacation to spend it indoors.

  This, together with a certain physical uneasiness—a kind of claustrophobia—created by the enveloping fog, bred dissatisfaction amongst the residents. A deputation from the sports committee, headed by the formidable Miss Gardiner, approached Captain Wise and asked what progress had been made in the Mad Hatter investigation. The manager turned them over to Nigel, who told them that he had the case well in hand.

  “Now, young man,” commented Miss Gardiner, “you can’t put me off with that kind of eyewash. We represent the visitors, and we have a right to know what’s being done. Have you, or have you not, found out the truth?”

  “Yes. I have found out the truth.”

  “Well, then——”

  “Do you, or do you not, want a scandal in the camp, Miss Gardiner?” said Nigel, matching her pedagogue’s aggressiveness with a manner even more magisterial. The deputation glanced uncertainly at each other. Only Miss Gardiner remained four-square for the truth.

  “You mean, I take it, that the management wants you to hush the whole thing up?”

  “The position is a little difficult, Miss Gardiner. If we publish the name of the culprit, he might receive very rough handling from the visitors; as you say, they’re worked up this morning. On the other hand, apart from the poisoning of the dog, there’s no charge we could bring against him in court. He has not done any damage. The duckings scarcely amount to an assault in the legal sense.”

  “But this is outrageous. Is he to get off scot-free?”

  Nigel delicately placed a finger on Miss Gardiner’s weakness, saying:

  “Under ordinary circumstances, no. But, as an expert psychologist, I know you will agree with me that certain delinquencies are best treated by psychotherapy rather than by disciplinary measures.”

  The schoolmistress gave him a gratified smile and a look of ponderous complicity.

  “Of course. I understand. Yes, that alters the whole case. I see, Mr. Strangeways, that it can safely be left in your hands.”

  With a curt nod to the other members of the deputation, a nod that silenced any protests they might have wished to make, she ushered them away as if dismissing a class.

  Nigel told Captain Wise he had got rid of her. “But how long they’ll keep quiet, I can’t guarantee,” he said. “I was thinking of getting together this afternoon the people concerned, and giving a report on the case. Perhaps I’d better ask Miss Gardiner to attend, too. Only, it’ll be rather a squash in my chalet.”

  “Why not use my sitting-room?” Captain Wise suggested. “What time would suit you?”

  “Shall we say four o’clock? I should have cleared up the various odds and ends by then, and it wouldn’t interfere with the normal camp programme. The others will be at tea.”

  “Very well. And I’ll arrange for tea to be brought up here. How many will be coming?”

  “Perry—the doctor says he can get about this afternoon: Mr. Thistlethwaite and Sally; Albert Morley; Miss Gardiner; your brother. That makes nine, including us two and Miss Jones.”

  “And the Mad Hatter is one of these?”

  “We’ll have to decide upon that when I’ve made my report.”

  Nigel spent the rest of the morning interviewing certain of the visitors and the Wonderland staff. Had he wished any of his movements to be unobserved, he could not have asked a better day for it. The fog, swirling over the camp in swathe after swathe, though there seemed to be no wind to account for its mobility, blanketed the buildings and kept most of the residents indoors. The few he met peered cautiously at him till they were certain of his identity: it was evident that they were on edge, fearing the fog as a stalking-ground for the Mad Hatter. Even indoors, playing at the pin-tables, at darts, billiards, or whatever recreation took its fancy, Wonderland was strangely subdued. The nervous strain of the last week, with all its queer tricks, rumours and apprehensions, had stretched nerves tauter than most realised. There was a feeling about—it coiled insidiously like the clammy sea-mist into every corner of the camp—that on this, the last full day of the holiday week, the Mad Hatter would perpetrate some crowning deed of malice. This feeling was heightened by the mystery of Captain Wise and Paul Perry, for the visitors had not been told the story of yesterday’s events. Captain Wise for his part, declaring that it would cause real panic in the camp if it were known that the practical joker had turned to shooting, insisted on the matter being hushed up: while certain very high Authorities, who had been in touch with Nigel and the local police by telephone, were equally insistent that the death of “Mr. Charles Black” should receive no publicity at all.

  At lunch-time Nigel was in Applestock, conferring with the Naval Intelligence and the Chief Constable. At an identity parade he was able to pick out the man who had passed the “betting-slip” to the spy. Later, he visited a poky, smelly little shop in the old quarter of the town. The police car returned him to Wonderland at half-past three …

  At four o’clock they were filing through the manager’s office into his sit
ting-room. There was a certain self-consciousness evident in most of them as they sat down at the table, already laid for tea, as if they were about to play a round game whose rules they did not know. Captain Wise indicated that Miss Gardiner, the oldest lady present, should sit at the head of the table: Nigel was given the other end, his back to the balcony window. When they were all seated, he took a quick look round.

  On his left was Paul Perry, his arm in a sling, pale and a little uneasy, but with that faint, underlying expression of triumph still perceptible. Beside him, radiant and protective, a grey-eyed Athene, was Sally Thistlethwaite. Next to Sally sat Teddy Wise, his magnificent body in its green Wonderland jersey almost blotting out Albert Morley beyond. On the other side of Miss Gardiner, who was putting on her pince-nez with a judicial gesture, Captain Wise sat: he had the relaxed expression of one who had handed over a responsibility. Next to him was Miss Jones, and between her and Nigel was stationed the attentive bulk of Mr. Thistlethwaite.

  “I wonder would you mind changing places with Mr. Thistlethwaite?” said Nigel to Miss Jones. “It will be more convenient if I want you to take any notes.”

  Mr. Thistlethwaite arose, handed her to his chair with a courtly gesture, and sat down in her place, carefully hitching up one trouser-leg and placing it over the other, momentarily the image of an Edwardian roué about to take an apéritif at Biarritz. He wore for this momentous occasion a cream-coloured flannel suit and a carnation in his buttonhole.

  “Well, ladies and gentlemen,” said Nigel, “by Captain Wise’s kind permission you’ve been asked here to listen to my report on the Mad Hatter business. In one way or another each of you has been closely involved with it, so it’s only fair that you should be the first—perhaps it will be the only—people to know the real truth about it.”