by Rufus King
I will now, he thought, be bewitched into Bette Davis starring as the Belle of Old Chickamauga, Tennessee.
He sat down.
The coachman mounted the driver’s seat.
The mare extended herself slenderly into a Currier and Ives.
The barouche rolled.
CHAPTER XXIX
SIX-TEN A.M.
“Is there no service around here?” Ludwig asked the lounge at large.
Ludwig held his finger (having found it) pressed on the bell button. He was, he knew, very drunk. And he was bad. Pity about giving Ann that push. Not gentlemanly. But what did that matter nowadays? Chivalry was a drug on the market. Too many women in pants. Impossible to exercise punctilio to a pair of pants. Somebody would take care of her. Because somebody had gone into the music room just before she had. A sprite, no less, who believed in hide-and-seek.
He wanted to cry. Nobody liked him. Really cared for him in the sense of fussing tenderly over him when he was hurt. The scratches on his cheek were beginning to smart. Let the she-devil lie by her spinet. Let her dance a farandola with the sprite. He wanted iodine. He wanted a drink. He wanted lots of things.
“You rang, Mr. Appleby?”
“I think I did.”
Washburn eyed Ludwig’s hair-covered forefinger.
“I believe you are still ringing, sir.”
“Well, so I am. I want a lot of things.”
“Yes?”
“I want iodine; I want a decanter of scotch, and I want Mr. Harlan.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Telephone for Mr. Harlan first. Wake him up. Get him down here.”
Washburn, expensively impervious, went to the house telephone.
“Well?” Ludwig said.
“I am ringing his rooms, Mr. Appleby.”
“Carry on.”
A moment passed.
Ludwig, in slow motion, moved to the sofa and sat down.
“Well?” Ludwig said.
“Mr. Harlan does not answer.”
“Ring again.”
The sofa was Knoll, softly cushioned in lime damask over goose down. Ludwig nested pillows. All else had failed, Ludwig decided, but at least this sofa loved him. How tenderly it enfolded.
“What in the devil is the matter with him?” he asked. “There is still no answer, sir.”
“Try once more.”
Ludwig’s desire to see Harlan was alcoholically vague.
Somewhere there was a purpose in it. A monetary one. Justin was dead, and he had just pushed Ann into a spinet. Would she skip it and let the bygone push be bygone? No. Estelle was no good. Estelle hated him. Anyhow, she thought he was the murderer and was out to see him hanged. Well, something might be done with Harlan. Money.
“I’m sorry, sir, but Mr. Harlan does not answer. Shall I go up and see?”
“Yes, but bring me the iodine first, and the scotch and ice and a siphon.”
“Certainly, sir.”
Washburn started for the service door.
“And,” Ludwig said, “a glass.”
CHAPTER XXX
SIX-TEN A.M.
The laboratory at Black Tor was located in a separate building removed at about a five minutes’ walk from the house.
It was a large room, a vast one almost, and it had been as expensively equipped by Dr. Johnson (with Marlow’s money) as that of any in the country. Even the cinematic settings for Mrs. Shelley’s young student of physiology, Frankenstein, scarcely offered laboratories more cluttered in glittering devices and in chemical scope.
Under a shaft of white light on a gleaming white table top lay the dark-haired cat. It was frankly bored. It yawned as insultingly as possible and stretched black satin legs. It sent a lethal look upward into the shaft of white light.
Medical Examiner Bedmann looked at Sergeant Hurlstone with bewilderment.
“I don’t know what you dragged me out of bed for,” he said. “There is nothing the matter with this cat at all.”
Sergeant Hurlstone remained granite.
“Have you made every test that you can, Doctor?”
“For the set of premises which you outlined, yes.”
“Will you need notes on them?”
“No. What for?”
“You will be asked to testify in detail concerning them at the trial. Also concerning Miss Ann Marlow’s carafe of drinking water. When I brought the carafe down here last night you and Dr. Johnson were completing the autopsy of Mr. Marlow. The cadaver was on that table over in that corner of the room. Is that right?”
“Certainly it is.”
“Try not to be impatient with me, Doctor. I am trying to impress these things firmly on your memory.”
“I’m not impatient. I just don’t get it.”
“You will. I put the carafe down on that small table over there in the center of that wall. I requested that neither of you touch it, to preserve fingerprints, but that whatever water you required for your test for poison be drawn out by a syringe. This all comes back to you?”
“Yes.”
“Dr. Johnson then assembled the equipment and chemicals necessary for testing for various poisons while you were continuing with the autopsy and I was explaining to you the circumstances surrounding Miss Ann Marlow’s suspicions. You will recall that I spoke of the metallic click, Miss Estelle Marlow’s entering the dressing room, and Miss Ann Marlow’s subsequent observing that the drinking glass had just been used.”
“What are you leading up to, Sergeant?”
“Shortly, Doctor. Now the materials required to test for pyrogallol were already on hand, as both you and Dr. Johnson had by then agreed on pyrogallol being in all probability the immediate cause of Mr. Marlow’s death. I am right so far?”
“You are.”
“You then left your work on the cadaver and tested the water in the carafe.”
“I did, and it contained enough pyrogallol to make a swallow of it fatal. What put it into your head that this cat had been given some too?”
“The fact that before I brought the carafe down here I had forced the cat to swallow what would amount to about two ordinary swallows of the water.”
“Then it should have been a dead cat about six hours ago.
“It isn’t.”
Dr. Bedmann was profoundly shocked.
“Was the carafe always with you until you brought it down here, Sergeant? Could no one have had access to it?”
“It was with me from the moment when I took it from Miss Ann Marlow’s bed table. The water was pure, Doctor, up to the moment when I left the carafe on that table over there.”
“Of course. Otherwise the cat would be dead. This is dumfounding, and I can make no sense in it. Why on earth would Dr. Johnson deliberately introduce a solution of pyrogallol into a carafe of perfectly pure water? I certainly didn’t. You didn’t. Nobody else was in here but Johnson.”
“Yes, Dr. Johnson did it. The pyrogallol solution was already at hand. He had used some of it earlier in the day to kill Marlow. Remember, he had just overheard me telling you Miss Ann Marlow’s suspicions about the carafe. He knew that if the water were found to contain poison Miss Estelle Marlow would almost certainly be accused.”
“Quick thinking, that.”
“Dr. Johnson’s thoughts have had considerable practice along such lines. It seemed a heaven-sent opportunity to stamp Miss Estelle Marlow as Suspect Number One for Justin Marlow’s murder. So he poured the pyrogallol into the carafe while you and I were standing talking beside the cadaver. He was completely certain it would be taken for granted that the pyrogallol had been introduced during the time when the carafe had been upstairs in Miss Ann Marlow’s bedroom. He was assured of this because he did not know that I had already started an immediate test by forcing this cat to take some of the water after the carafe was in my possession. It is the act that will convict him.”
“Of Marlow? Of that earlier one?”
“That’s right. All of them.”
&
nbsp; “Aren’t you taking a chance by accusing him on the basis of that carafe business alone?”
“I’m not. There’s more than that. A chow dog called Chin. An Adam desk. A mess back in Boston. Care to come with me?”
“Where?”
“To arrest him.”
Six-fourteen a.m.
CHAPTER XXXI
SIX-FOURTEEN A.M.
Bill stepped from the barouche.
He was beginning to feel foolish, not from the barouche, but because he had come to Black Tor at all. That butler’s voice over the telephone hadn’t sounded as though Ann were in dire peril, and the coachman hadn’t resembled any minion from a Fu Manchu’s lair. Neither had the horse.
What had Ann meant by that “widower” crack with its vivid trimmings about pyrogallol and about the next time their cooking up something fresh? Then hanging up.
All right. He was a dupe. Lured here by her wiles and craft. Coldly formal would be the word for it. No, I must have misunderstood you, Ann, my dear. Sorry. Bad connection, wasn’t it? And Freska’s is always so noisy. Never a moment without its hurtling bottle and planted mouse. I just came up because I wanted to say good-by to you anyhow. Before going. No, better not add an Over There. Just keep it dignified, restrained, and simple.
Possibly he would let himself be persuaded to breakfast (he was hungry as the dickens), but all on a socially formal plane. An English breakfast, Bill decided, from the looks of the dive. Several yards of crested silver warming dishes. Eggs, kidneys, sausages, hashed brown potatoes, collops, and English brawn.
Bill was glad to see that Washburn looked like his voice. Bill gave him his service cap. He followed Washburn for a half day’s march to the lounge.
“Miss Marlow said she would receive you in here, Mr. Forrest.”
“Thank you.”
Washburn bowed, vanished.
Bill walked into the lounge. He spotted Ludwig just about the moment when Ludwig spotted him. Ludwig was enchanted. He studied Bill’s uniform.
“There’s no use in shooting,” he said. “I haven’t a patch of white left in my eyes. I’m Ludwig Appleby. Who are you?”
“Bill Forrest.”
“That’s right. Ann said you were dropping in. I didn’t believe her. Have a drink, Mr. Forrest?”
“Thank you, I will.”
“I’ll try to get my hand loose from the decanter. It’s stuck. I’m drunk.”
“Sound idea.”
“I thought so. There. Help yourself.”
Bill helped himself.
“How is Miss Marlow, Mr. Appleby?”
“Ann? Fine, fine. She is dancing a farandola with a sprite.”
“Good for her. Was she up all night too?”
“No, just me. I sat out in the hall waiting for a murderer.” Ludwig stared unbelievably at the apparition of a Washburn coming toward them on a run. “Look! He’s running.”
Washburn, extremely pale and out of breath, stopped short by the sofa.
“Gentlemen, Sergeant Hurlstone has just telephoned from Dr. Johnson’s house. He wishes Miss Ann Marlow located immediately. She failed to answer the telephone in her rooms. I beg you to believe how serious this is. Dr. Johnson is not at home, and Sergeant Hurlstone is afraid the doctor’s purpose is to do Miss Marlow some bodily harm. Sergeant Hurlstone is on his way here now.” Washburn caught up with his breath and blurted it out: “Dr. Johnson is the murderer. En masse.”
Bill looked at Ludwig’s glazing eyes. He didn’t like them.
“Appleby!” he said sharply. “You know where she is. What did you mean about dancing a farandola and that sprite stuff?”
“About what, Mr. Forrest?”
“Where is Ann?”
Ludwig waved Bill away with a petulant gesture. “Did you say Johnson, Washburn?”
“Yes.”
“Johnson is the murderer?”
“Yes.”
“Poor Ann.”
The excitement was too much.
Ludwig passed out.
CHAPTER XXXII
SIX-FOURTEEN A.M.
Dr. Johnson sat tense and cramped in the darkness.
The metal pipes of the 16 double open diapason of the great organ towered above him through dusty murk. The small panel door through which he had come from the music room was tightly closed.
Ann Marlow, he knew, had followed him into the music room, but her attention had immediately been held by the spinet, which had given him time to slip through the little doorway. There had been voices, muffled, unclear, but the man’s voice had sounded like Ludwig’s.
Then silence.
They were gone, probably, but Dr. Johnson thought it safer to wait for a while. His legs were annoyed because of their cramped position, and he was annoyed because his being shoved in there among the organ pipes wasn’t dignified. Funny how in later years dignity had come to mean so much.
Funny, too, how year after year for twenty long years he should have kept searching for that damned letter and never have found it.
How strongly Ann had resembled Alice when she had come into the music room just now. So much more so than she had on the day before. Possibly the white dress with the hint in its cut of an earlier day had done the trick.
Really, she had looked almost exactly as Alice had looked when Alice had confronted him about the contents of the letter. Alice had not been wearing white, it was true, but the cut of her gown had been the same.
He could understand—he had always been able to understand—why his mother had written that letter to Alice.
His mother and father had both been of stern Puritan stock, and he had always known that his father’s fatal stroke had been brought on by the discovery of his affair with Janette Maynew and his illegal operation which had resulted in Janette’s death.
Then had come his mother’s immediate attack of brain fever, brought on by the death of his father, with her writing to Alice during her single moment of lucidity just before she died.
His mother had had to write that letter.
She would have considered it a moral duty she could never have evaded even though it meant the ruin of her son. Alice’s family, the Charings, had always been their charges, and Alice was to have a child and trusted him. So his mother would have reasoned it out.
He remembered some of the phrases Alice had quoted from his mother’s letter: “unworthy of a place in that honored and splendid profession to which his father and his grandfather had dedicated their lives.” That had been one of them.
It was while she had been quoting this phrase that Alice had been standing with her back close to the grill-work masking the sesquialtera of the great organ, and her hands had been behind her, holding something. He had thought it at the time to be a handkerchief, but it could have been the letter, which was why he had always considered the music room as the best place to search for it. Then again, when she had walked over to the spinet, he had thought there had been nothing in her hands.
Always he believed that this going of Alice’s to the spinet had been the move which had set off the fatal ending. It was her “dismissal” of him, done in the fashion of the lady of the period. Even now he flushed in remembrance of his pleading that she reconsider her intention (her duty, she had called it) to expose him. An exposure which certainly would have thrown him out of his profession and exposed him to a murder charge for the illegal operation which had resulted in Janette’s death.
Pleading? Never would he permit the knowledge to come out of its hiding place in his secret mind that he had groveled, literally, at her feet.
Then his love—for he had loved her a little, as much so as he had been capable of loving anyone other than himself—even that tepid thing had been taken out and spread before her.
And her words: “Go, please. Don’t let me add disgust to my pity for you.”
She had spoken the words over her shoulder, not even turning to say them to him (actually she could not stand his transformation into such abjectness, but h
e had taken the whole spinet performance as the curt dismissal of a servant, whereas in reality Alice had not had the heart to look at him), so his head had suddenly filled with fire and he had killed her.
Even as he had walked from the room (so quickly had his amour-propre started working to excuse him) that thing from Wilde had come into his head as a palliative sop to mitigate the horrendous nature of his deed: “For all men kill the thing they love.”
How could he explain such things, such imponderables, at a trial? Should he ever be brought to trial, which he felt certain he would not. Well, he wouldn’t bother. He felt very safe, still in his private nirvana which was of his own creation, which had grown each year stronger as the years so securely had come and gone.
He hadn’t found the letter, so nobody would.
Alice (he had sometimes thought this) could well have destroyed it before summoning him to the music room to denounce him. She had issued this summons over the house telephone, thank God, so no one but he and she had known of it.
Certainly the letter had not been in the drawer of her desk, where she kept her private correspondence. He had gone up and looked for it there right after killing her.
That was when Frank Lawrence had caught a glimpse of him just as he left Alice’s room, but in the immediate excitement the fact had not registered with Frank as being of any importance. Dr. Johnson had then run to his own rooms (he was staying in the house then and did not have a house of his own on the grounds as he had now) and hurriedly taken off his white surgeon’s smock because it was bloodstained. He had worn the smock in the first place as a harmless jest, because he had thought that Alice’s telephoned summons was simply for him to take another look at the injured foot of her chow, Chin.
He had put on the dark tweed coat which went with his trousers and later he had destroyed the bloodstained smock. But the remembrance of Lawrence’s glimpse of him wearing it continued to worry him. A stupid fellow, Lawrence, but even so the thought had preyed upon Dr. Johnson so after a while he had doctored the pâté of foie gras with ptomaine and had got Lawrence out of the way.
A clever man could deduce most of this—say a man like Sergeant Hurlstone, if he once got on the track. Certainly, if through some amazing and cruel chance or purpose he ever got hold of the letter, then a mind like Sergeant Hurlstone’s easily would fit everything into its proper place.