The Witch of the Low Tide

by John Dickson Carr

  “No, you are not.”

  “I’m going to tell you—”

  “And I say you are not” shouted Garth, circling round the table to stand over her. Betty’s grey gloves went up in the air like claws about to scratch; but this was a futile gesture too. “I can guess already, and there is no time. If anything has happened to Michael Fielding, it will be enough to explain your conduct today.”

  “Do you imagine I care about explaining my conduct today?”

  “You should. What are you doing down here? In a billiard-room, of all places. Why did you run out of the lounge?”

  “I came down here because it’s the one place in this awful hotel where a person can be alone on a Sunday. Alone, alone, utterly and entirely alone. Did you never want to be alone and hide your face away from everyone? No, I don’t suppose you did. You’re one of these self-sufficient persons. I knew you didn’t trust me; I knew that since yesterday evening. But I never guessed how little you trusted me until you showed that typewritten note to your Mr. Michael Fielding and said you were ‘compelled’ to lie about having written it to me.

  “You heard what I was telling Marion last night? And yet you never said a word about it today? Until a trifle like the note brought on these hysterics?”

  “A trifle, is it? You call the note a trifle? My God, how I hate you! I’ve never hated anyone so much in my whole life.”

  “Betty, be quiet!”

  “Yes, strike me! Why don’t you? I know you’d love to strike me; I can see your hand go up; why don’t you?”

  “Be quiet, I say! We must find Michael; we’ve got to find Michael! In another minute—”

  In another minute, he knew, there would have been a burst of sobbing which he could have ended only with a savage slap across her face. And this was precisely what he wanted to do; it frightened him that he should so much have wanted to hit Betty or shake her until her teeth rattled.

  Abruptly Garth turned away, looking round the room and wondering.

  And he felt the sweat start out on his forehead. Here in this so-called Grotto they seemed lost in an undersea world, without even a sound except the noise of his own footsteps. He hurried towards the alcoves, each with its spectral fishing trophy that looked glazed or varnished with one open eye.

  Perhaps they were glazed or varnished; he was not enough of a sportsman to know. Each alcove, in addition, contained a small round table and a bench covered with padded green leather. He searched each of them, moving slowly; he looked under the benches and up over his head at twisted stonework. Then he returned towards the billiard tables.

  “There’s nowhere else to look,” he said. “Michael is not here.”

  “Are you surprised? Maybe he vanished. Maybe I made him vanish, like that witch-woman in one of the books you gave me.

  “For the last time, Betty, let there be no more of this. That’s a part of the trouble, which you had better understand here and now. I not only gave you those books; I wrote quite a number of them too.”

  “Oh, what in dear heaven’s name are you talking about now?”

  “Just that I may have made a bad job of protecting you. But I am not going to have you hanged because I wrote half a dozen stupid novels about impossible crimes.”

  “Don’t apologize. You needn’t. You’ve done other things, haven’t you? You’ve done quite a wonderful job at protecting your dear, dear Mrs. Bostwick?”

  “What’s this,” interrupted a new voice, “about his dear, dear Mrs. Bostwick?”

  From the corner of his eye, only half a second before that voice spoke, Garth noticed for the first time the invasion of another light which may have been burning a good deal longer. The archway-entrance to the billiard-room was brilliantly illuminated from outside. The stretch of wine-coloured carpet leading to the stairs was also illuminated; the wine-coloured carpet on the steps, the brass stair-rods, the polished walls on either side, all shared this glow. Vincent Bostwick, silk hat held across his chest and silver-headed stick under his left arm, stood at the foot of the stairs.

  “Yes, madam?” demanded Vince. “May I ask what you were saying?”

  Betty did not move, her face now completely expressionless. But Garth covered the distance to the archway in three long strides.

  The whole corridor above the staircase was illuminated, from crystal chandeliers against its ornate ceiling. Marion Bostwick stood halfway down the stairs, at the left side by the handrail, her blue eyes as expressionless as Betty’s.

  Vince said, “I was asking—”

  “Yes,” interrupted Garth, his own temper simmering. “But we thought you had gone, Vince. We thought you had both gone. We thought you always followed Marion.”

  “My dear old boy,” Vince said in a different tone, “so I had. That’s why I came back. Marion hadn’t gone, it seems. She thought you were about some odd sort of game down here and I bribed an attendant to turn on these lights.”

  “Now why should Marion have thought I was about some game?”

  “Well, old boy…”

  “Don’t let him bully you, Vince,” cried Marion. Round her mouth twisted an expression partly of fear and partly of cruelty. She made a magnificent figure on the staircase, white dress against wine-coloured carpet and polished-oak wall; but that look round the mouth dominated everything else.

  “Don’t let him bully you,” she repeated, leaning forward. “You’re forever allowing everyone to bully you. I won’t have it, Vince! We needn’t be afraid of anything David says.”

  Vince flung his head sideways.

  “There are times, old girl, when you lack elementary decency. There are times, in fact, when you lack it in more senses than one. I don’t propose to make a row here, which is evidently what you want me to do.”

  “Then, I will, Vince dear. Be sure I will!”

  “Try it, Marion,” said Garth.

  He was never to learn what might have happened, or what Marion might have said. Two other figures appeared at the top of the stairs—a young man white-faced and stumbling, an elderly man with a heavy grey moustache, gripping the young man’s arm just above the elbow—and stood looking down at the other three below.

  The light of the crystal chandeliers beat on these two newcomers. The elderly man, teeth showing in a kind of frozen violence, was Cullingford Abbot. The young man was Michael Fielding.

  “Go down there,” Abbot snarled to his companion, releasing Michael’s arm. “Go down there, I beg, and explain yourself. Once before this afternoon, pray believe me, I was prepared to deal with a youth of your age. I am prepared to do it again. Go down, sir!”

  And Michael tottered down the stairs.

  His appearance, which should have provided a shock of anticlimax, was not anticlimax at all. The look of his eyes, the pinched nostrils, the almost unnatural gloss of his high collar, told Garth there might be worse events in waiting.

  In the suddenness of that apparition, too, Garth failed to see Marion’s expression as anyone might have failed to see it. Marion, Vince, and Garth were all looking upwards. Betty had run out to the archway and was also looking up.

  Abbot, at the head of the stairs, drew a handkerchief from his sleeve and mopped his lips like a suave conjurer. Replacing the handkerchief in his sleeve, he raised his right hand in a gesture of direction to some person unseen. The chandelier lights went out; every light went out, so that there remained only the faint glow from the billiard-room. Behind Abbot’s back Garth could see a square of dwindling daylight from a window of mosaic glass still pushed up halfway; and (he had not observed this before) a vertical edge of daylight from a side door that was slightly ajar.

  Michael stumbled in the sudden gloom, and all but fell on the stairs. Vince stood to one side. It was Betty who spoke first

  “I hope you’re satisfied,” she said, turning to face Garth under the archway. “I hope they’re satisfied too. I hope they’re all, all satisfied!”

  Then she ran.

  Garth had one glimpse of the
hopeless despair in Betty’s face before she ran blindly up the stairs, holding up her skirts and hearing Marion’s laughter as she fled past. He did not try to stop her. His present emotions (and they were complex) centred first on Marion Bostwick and then on Michael Fielding.

  “Now, my dear Garth,” continued the harsh voice of Cullingford Abbot, as he descended the stairs at a somewhat strutting walk, “let us clear up certain misunderstandings.”

  “By all means.”

  “First: I have got rid of Twigg. Pray don’t ask me how; but for the moment I have got rid of him and he won’t trouble you. Second: in these alarms and excursions you have been making an ass of yourself.”

  “I am not satisfied of that.”

  “No?” In leisurely fashion Abbot set the glass into his eyesocket. “Twigg was on the point of invading the hotel with constabulary to find you. My good friend the Secretary (call him Secretary, please; not hotel-manager) was frantic. Yet all I did was go into the…all I did was go in to wash my hands. And there was the young man you were looking for, as hale and unharmed as you see him now.”

  “Yet I am still not satisfied.” Garth swung round. “Michael, what happened?”

  “Yes, Michael,” Marion Bostwick cried from the stairs. “What happened?”

  Michael had run in one direction as Betty had gone in the other. He had run into the billiard-room. He stood with his back to the nearest table, silhouetted against its canopy-lights, with a wild and hollow and incredulous look on his face.

  “So help me, Governor, I think you must be dotty.” Michael’s voice went high. “Happened? Nothing happened. It was a have.”

  “A what?”

  “A have. A joke. A not very funny joke, either. You were there yourself, weren’t you, when that waiter sneaked up in the lounge and whispered to me?”

  “Yes, I was there. What did the waiter say?”

  “He said some lady wished to speak to me privately ‘in the Grotto’ (those were the words he used) about something to do with ‘the affair.’ Well, naturally, what did I think at first?” Abruptly Michael swallowed as though his throat hurt him. “I thought he meant the murder case, and I told you so. I didn’t even know what the Grotto was supposed to be, though there are signs and arrows all over the place.”

  “Did he tell you who the lady was?”

  “No. He swore he hadn’t seen her. Then, on the way, I began to wonder. That word ‘affair’ can mean more than one thing.”

  “Ah!” breathed Cullingford Abbot, who was standing beside Marion Bostwick and brushing his moustache. “Whereupon you imagined a fair charmer yearning for an assignation, I daresay? Don’t you rather fancy yourself, young man?”

  They had all crowded after Michael, who made a badgered ducking motion of his sandy-haired head. Tension only grew with those words.

  “Whatever I imagined, I didn’t think it for long. In this place? In a billiard-room? Anyway, not a soul turned up. I waited here for eight or ten minutes in the dark. Then I knew I’d been had, and I left. It’s not the cleanest spot in the world, as you can see for yourself?”

  Here Michael appealed directly to Garth.

  “Governor, why all the rumpus? Is everybody else dotty too? I’d no more gone for a wash and brush-up than that old gentleman with the eyeglass charged in at me as though I’d stolen the crown-jewels. I’m sorry if I spoke a bit sharply and told him to mind his own business. But I’ve been through a great deal today.”

  “You may go through still more,” Abbot told him, “unless you behave yourself. However! The apology is accepted. No harm has been done. You do see that, Garth?”

  “See what?”

  “That no harm has been done!”

  “What do you say, Michael?” Garth asked softly. “You met nobody here in this room? And no harm came to you in the dark?”

  “Deuce take it, Governor, what harm could have come to me? I’m all right; don’t you see that? My collar isn’t even wilted. And what’s the matter now?”

  “I am wondering,” Garth answered after a pause, “why you should mention your collar at all. Some people carry a spare collar for hot Sundays. There is a fairly large bloodstain on the canvas cover of that billiard-table about four inches from where your right hand is resting now.”

  “Governor—!”

  “You were attacked, weren’t you? And frightened nearly out of your wits? As a medical man yourself, will you permit me to examine your throat and nostrils?”

  Michael ran round to the other side of the table, as though to put its length between himself and the advancing Garth. But a poisoned atmosphere seemed to have affected the breathing of most persons here. Marion stood very straight, mouth and eyes disdainful; Vince leaned on his walking-stick and stared at the floor.

  “Young man,” Abbot asked curtly, “is this true?”

  “No! No! I swear it’s not!”

  “If you let the murderer frighten you out of speaking, Michael,” said Garth, “you may well get an innocent woman hanged. Did you observe Lady Calder? Does that prospect please you so very much?”

  “Governor, for God’s sake!”

  “And if you let David Garth frighten you into anything, my poor Michael,” Marion Bostwick said with superb assurance, “you’re a far more futile person than I ever thought you were. We owe him nothing! We needn’t be afraid of him! All he’s concerned to do is protect his fancy woman at the beach-house. Isn’t that so, David?”

  Garth took two more steps towards the billiard-table before turning back.

  “Marion,” he said, “don’t make it war. For old friendship’s sake, don’t make it war.”

  And up went Marion’s shoulder.

  “David, dear, what utter stuff and nonsense you do talk! And the most high-flown kind of rubbish too. ‘War’?”

  “War between us. I’ve been trying to avoid that.”

  “Oh, la-di-da! I have not the least idea…”

  “Then Vince has, if you haven’t.”

  “I have a good many ideas, you know,” said Vince, flinging his head round and studying Marion in a dispassionate way, “that even my damned talkativeness keeps to itself and only dreams about. Marion, my pet, I should have a little care. You think you don’t need David any longer. You think he won’t dare give you away or he’d give away Betty Calder too. You’re skating like a maniac, my sweetest love; but have a little care. I warned you once you could never think two moves ahead.”

  “Really, if we are speaking of maniacs,” said Marion, “I think I must be surrounded by them. Michael, do tell these poor people! Was there anybody in this room when you came down here a while ago?”

  “No, Marion, there was not.”

  “Did anyone attack you, dear Michael?”

  “No! No! No! And there aren’t any bruises on my neck, either.”

  “If all one wants to do is get at the truth, and please believe that is all I want to do,” Marion’s yearning was like that of a fleshier angel, “it’s never so awfully difficult as people think. This is the truth! You must see it’s the truth. You’re a stupid lot of fools if you don’t! Mr. Abbot, don’t you see it’s the truth?”

  “Abbot—” Garth began with some violence.

  “Now if you interfere—” Marion almost screamed.

  Their voices rang out and clashed amid the stone grottoes. Michael stood rigid behind the billiard-table. Vince was again staring at the floor.

  “Listen to me, all of you,” said Cullingford Abbot.

  There was a sudden silence.

  Again drawing the handkerchief out of his sleeve, Abbot dabbed at his mouth and also at his forehead. He hesitated. He stalked towards the archway as though leaving them, and then stalked back again.

  “Up to twenty-four hours ago,” he announced, “I should have said blandly I knew how to meet any situation. Well, I don’t know how to meet this one. I am not God. Still less, despite my grandiose statements, am I the C.I.D. either. Garth, Twigg brought some news.”

  �
��Oh?”

  “The inquest on Glynis Stukeley has been arranged for tomorrow at Fairfield Town Hall. Had you learned that?”

  “No, of course I hadn’t. What will the police do at the inquest?”

  Abbot thrust the handkerchief back into his sleeve.

  “I can’t say. By which I mean Twigg won’t tell me.” His expression sharpened. “They may get the inquest adjourned. On the other hand, considering Twigg’s present mood, they may bring evidence to get an inquest-verdict of wilful murder against Lady Calder and have her held for committal before the magistrates.”

  “A trial is as close as that, is it?”

  “I fear it is.”

  “Won’t Michael be asked to testify?”

  “Tut!” The eyeglass loomed hypnotically. “This young man’s affair with Glynis Stukeley, legally at least, had nothing whatever to do with the murder late yesterday afternoon. Young Ormiston will not be called, if it comes to that; nor will Mr. and Mrs. Bostwick, even if they knew anything. The only certain witness will be Lady Calder herself, as the next of kin. And probably you, who discovered the body.”

  Shadows seemed to be closing amid the grottoes, as though an undersea world pressed closer.

  “That’s what I wished to ask.” And Abbot made a nervous gesture. “Garth, have you any evidence aside from psychological evidence? Suppose the police take the second course? If at this moment you had to brief counsel in Lady Calder’s interest, could you prevent a verdict of wilful murder?”

  “No, I could not. Much of what Twigg says is probably true.”

  “To put the matter crudely, then, you’re dished?”

  “At the moment, to put the matter crudely, I am worse than dished.”

  Across Marion’s face travelled the edge of a smile, hardly more than a quirk at the corner of her mouth before it disappeared. You might not even have believed it had existed there against the radiance and health of her twenty years. But Vince Bostwick saw it. So did Abbot.