Dark of the moon - Dr. Gideon Fell 22

by John Dickson Carr

  "How do you know this?"

  "From Camilla. She writes regularly, if coolly."

  "And you spoke of 'grief.' What grief?"

  "Say alarm and confusion, then; exactly what remains obscure. Camilla's been cryptic, as cryptic as Henry Maynard, so cryptic I can't be certain of one damn fact. Camilla's upset, though. Something rather sensational occurred last Friday night, the 7th, when Mr. Maynard was away on a business-trip to Richmond. Up to then, it seems, he himself had been despondent and down in the mouth. When he returned Saturday morning he was a changed man, hearty and full of beans. The guests were supposed to leave at the weekend; he wouldn't hear of it, and persuaded 'em to stay. Except that Camilla is upset, which bothers me a good deal, that's all I can tell you."

  Then Alan burst out. Though normally a driver who kept his eye strictly on the road, he flashed round a look before turning back.

  "What do you make of Henry Maynard, for God's sake? Outwardly he seems stuffy, but I'm willing to bet he's not stuffy at all. There's an explosive personality behind that facade."

  "Agreed without a struggle," grunted Dr. Fell.

  "How well do you know him, Magister?"

  "I have met the man just once. And you?"

  "I've seen him only three times, and two years ago at that, when I called on 'em at Goliath in Connecticut. There's a daughter named Madge."

  "Oh, ah; I know. Well?"

  "Madge radiates sex-appeal," Alan said. "Like the late Gaby Delys, she has an eye that can open an oyster at sixty paces. Madge isn't conscious of this; it's as natural to her as breathing, and she never quite guesses the effect on every male within yards. I might have fallen for her myself, which is why I went there three times, if I hadn't met Camilla and . . . and . . ."

  "And what?" demanded Dr. Fell, now looking pinkly distressed. "Forgive the curiosity of an old duffer, but why such reluctance to speak of the lady? Is it merely that you have fallen? You're in love with her?"

  "Yes, except when I want to murder her. Or, which is more accurate, when she wants to murder me."

  "Wants to murder you, does she? Surely a hopeful sign, by thunder!"

  "No, it's past hope. Camilla's different from other women."

  "In what way is she different?"

  "Not anatomically; I can swear to that. For sheer sex-appeal, in my view, she outdoes Madge Maynard and any other woman alive."

  "Then what, pray, is the nature of the difficulty? Hang it all! Can I persuade you to be a little more explicit?"

  Alan pondered.

  "There is no subject calling for an opinion," he said, "where we don't collide head-on. Camilla's a mathematician, mathematics being my pet abomination. Politically she's a liberal concerned about social welfare; I'm a reactionary conservative who couldn't care less. She's got some fairly far-out views on letters and art; I see no virtue in butchering the English language or spoiling canvas with a nightmare. The best we achieve is an armed truce; wait and see."

  "Are you sure (harrumph!)—are you sure you understand the lady? For instance, have you mentioned your more than tepid feelings for her?"

  "No; Camilla wouldn't be interested." Then Alan burst out again. "But I wish I knew what's happening at Maynard Hall. If the ghost of a dead pirate is still alert to stalk somebody and smash his head with the blunt side of a tomahawk . . . !"

  It was as though he had flung a bucket of water into his companion's face.

  "One moment!" spluttered Dr. Fell, gasping and choking for breath. "Will you repeat that, please? If the ghost of a dead pirate is still alert to WHAT?"

  "It's only a legend, Magister. Founded on fact, but the rest whisper and rumor: all cloud."

  "Cloud or moonshine, my lad, let's have it!"

  Alan studied the road ahead.

  "The first Maynard to be granted land by the Lords Proprietors of the Province of Carolina (in 1685, I believe) was called Richard. The names Richard, Henry, and Luke keep recurring to the present day.

  "No longer a young man, our first Richard seems to have been something of a swashbuckler. But he had bought five hundred acres on the north shore of James Island; he married, started a family, and settled in to grow rice and sea-island cotton. Then came his bitter feud with Big Nat Skeene.

  "Nathaniel Skeene, though decently bred and educated, was a tangle-bearded ruffian of the most vicious sort. He had sailed with pirates and lived with Indians; but nobody could prove the former, and of the latter he boasted. He lived then in a stone hut beside a swamp on the south shore of the island, not far from what is now Folly Beach. We don't know why he hated Richard Maynard and threatened to (quote) 'have his guts out'; Richard returned the hatred in full force.

  "Joseph Morton, Governor of Charles Town Colony, had been looking for an excuse to get rid of Skeene. The years rolled; he found his excuse. Big Nat had two Indian wives who actually were slaves; the law forbade slavery for Indians if not for Negroes. One day in 1692 Governor Morton dispatched his military aide, Captain Waring, to give Skeene walking-papers and turn the man out. Captain Waring crossed from the mainland in a small boat, but wasn't sure where to find Skeene. Richard Maynard offered to guide him.

  "They rode over on the embryonic trail which was the only path that then existed. No sooner had they dismounted than Big Nat came rushing out of the house, his arms loaded with primitive weapons. Paying no attention to the governor's officer, he directed all venom at his old enemy. He flung weapons at Richard's feet, bellowed the sort of challenge no Maynard could refuse, and charged in hell-roaring.

  "Quite a battle must have danced on those lonely sands beside the swamp. They fought Indian-style with knives and tomahawks, knife in the right hand and tomahawk in the left.

  "Richard Maynard, a good swordsman but unused to butcher's work like this, had great speed or great luck. He was far from squeamish; he didn't mind fighting with the knife. But to split any man's skull with a tomahawk, whether thrown from a distance or used hand-to-hand, seemed to him bloody barbarism. He dodged Skeene's first rushes, then lost his head and waded in.

  "The tomahawk, you know, was only a smaller hatchet with a flat surface, no hammer-head, on the side opposite its cutting edge. Even the blunt side was deadly enough. Skeene charged again, striking upwards with the knife for his opponent's belly. With the tomahawk turned in his hand, blunt side inwards, Richard whacked hard at the right side of Skeene's head. Skeene failed to parry with knife-arm; the blow struck him senseless or worse; even as he was falling Richard stabbed him to the heart.

  "They buried Big Nat at the edge of the swamp where he fell. Since Captain Waring had witnessed everything, Richard Maynard's 'trial' was no trial at all. The jury discharged him almost with a vote of thanks, certainly with recorded thanks that Skeene had been given Christian burial. So far the story's true; it's a matter of record; you can find it under sign and seal. But afterwards, Dr. Fell . . . afterwards . . . !"

  Dr. Fell, who had been listening in cross-eyed absorption, here reared up.

  "With exemplary patience," he said, "I have heard very tolerable sensationalism. Cheerfully will I continue listening. So far, however, there has been no puzzle to keep us awake o' nights."

  "Richard Maynard, they say, was kept awake o' nights."

  "Well?"

  "Again the years rolled on," Alan continued. "No trace, apparently, remained of Big Nat Skeene. His hut fell to ruin; his wives returned to their Tuscarora tribe. Except for an influx of settlers, then as later, James Island remained the same. It was Richard Maynard who gradually changed.

  "Never very genial, he grew so morose and edgy that his children were afraid to go near him. To anyone who would listen he complained that something or somebody was following him everywhere. He would go through the roof at a suddenly opened door; he dreaded the hour of dusk, and couldn't bear the night.

  "One day in 1698 he rode again to the other side of the island. Nobody knows why he went there. His horse returned that night; he didn't. At dawn they found his body in t
he swamp a few hundred yards north of Big Nat's grave. The right side of his head had been battered in: not with a cutting edge, but as though by repeated blows from the blunt side of a tomahawk. His own footprints, only his, were in the soft mud roundabout. No weapon of any kind could be found.

  "There's the story, Dr. Fell. Make of it what you like; I apologize for such foolishness. But Nathaniel Skeene living was no fit associate for anybody. Nathaniel Skeene dead would have been still less desirable company."

  Dr. Fell had shut his eyes tightly and was groping in the air.

  "Stop!" he boomed. "I think I have heard . . . Isn't there a subsequent story rather like that one, about two hundred years later?"

  "If you mean Commodore Luke Maynard in 1867, we have almost as little evidence about him."

  "Almost as little evidence? Archons of Athens! Surely there were newspapers?"

  "Oh, yes. But—"

  "But what?"

  "Commodore Luke Maynard, a grim sort of swashbuckler and as fire-eating a Confederate as ever lived, commanded one of the Southern raiders which wreaked such havoc on Union commerce. Everybody has heard of C.S.S. Florida and C.S.S. Alabama. Luke Maynard commanded C.S.S. Palmetto, like the others built in England and fitted with guns at a port far from Britain. She was finally accounted for by U.S.S. Pontiac, of much heavier tonnage and gun-power; the two warships sank each other in a running fight off Jamaica in 1864. Luke Maynard stayed with his ship when it went down, but was picked up by a boat-load of Confederate sympathizers from Port Royal.

  "If he didn't die under the guns of the enemy, he might well have died in a duel after the war. Down came the stars and bars from the flagstaff outside Maynard Hall. The grip of reconstruction squeezed Charleston hard; Union troops occupied the then-Citadel on Marion Square; there were damnyankees at every corner, and Commodore Maynard had no even temper. Yet he didn't die by a bullet either.

  "One night in April of '67 he was walking west along the beach below and at one side of the Hall. They found his body at low tide next morning. Though he lay above the highest reach of the tide, the sand was damp for thirty feet around him in every direction. Right side of the head battered in, no footprints except his own, no weapon there either.

  "I said the newspapers weren't very helpful. They're still preserved in the basement at Charleston City College Library. But you can understand why they're not very helpful. The Confederacy had endured four years of horrors, including Sherman's gentle march from Atlanta to the sea, and afterwards into the Carolinas too; the Confederacy had supped full. Newspaper accounts of Commodore Maynard's death are so discreet it's hard to tell what happened. The one point they do mention is hardly informative. On the sand at a short distance from the body, twelve or fifteen inches from his head and ten inches above it, lay a little tangle of seaweed."

  "Seaweed!" Dr. Fell suddenly boomed. "O Lord! O Bacchus! O my ancient hat! Did you say seaweed?"

  "Yes. It's often found on beaches, you know."

  "Oh, ah; of course. I was wool-gathering again." Dr. Fell blinked at the countryside flowing by. "Incidentally, where are we now?"

  "Past Columbia and the hundred-mile mark. In another hour and a bit . . ."

  They said little more for the rest of the journey. With cross-eyed concentration Dr. Fell studied, hands folded on his stick. Alan smoked cigarette after cigarette, an image of Camilla in his mind. He saw the chestnut-colored hair, the glow of her complexion, the dark-blue eyes that would never quite meet his own.

  At a quarter past noon they were negotiating the gritty industrial area north of Charleston's center. Alan made a right-hand turn through thickening traffic.

  "This is King Street," he said, "the very long thoroughfare you mentioned. Now ten minutes or so of fast-changing traffic lights. When the light turns green, you must be almost the next car in line or it's red again before you get there."

  "Must we search all over town for the hotel?"

  "No. You'll see it presently on the right, at the corner of Calhoun Street opposite Marion Square. Watch for a large red-brick building with the entrance to the parking space beside it in this direction.

  "As I tried to indicate long ago," he said ten minutes later, "Henry Maynard should be able to tell us more family history than there is in the record." Disquiet smote again. "But nothing very bad can be going on now, or we should have heard of it! There can't be anything wrong, can there? This is where we turn in."

  "Well," said Dr. Fell, "somebody seems to be hailing you. The young lady . . ."

  Alan's heart jumped. He drew up at a white-painted barrier across the entrance to the open auto lobby. With his left hand he pressed a silvered knob on the box-mechanism that controlled the barrier. The mechanism rang, yielding up a punched slip of paper; the barrier rose, and he drove through.

  Then he saw her.

  Slightly taller than Madge Maynard, perhaps a little more slender though with much the same figure, she wore a blue-and-white summer dress of somewhat formal aspect, and raised a pair of sun-glasses at him.

  "Camilla!"

  "Alan!"

  "It's all right, isn't it? They haven't been using a tomahawk, I hope?"

  "No, not lately," said Camilla. She seemed a trifle flustered, no doubt from the warmth of the day. "If you're referring to those horrible old stories, there's a tomahawk in the weapons-room. But it's gone out of fashion nowadays, even as something for you to use on me."

  "On you?"

  For the first time Alan noticed somebody else, and caught himself at once. Behind Camilla towered a burly man in dark suit and dark tie, beginning to put on weight as his years neared fifty. He had a hard jaw but a good-natured eye; his manner was deliberate and ruminating. Camilla's attention remained with Alan.

  "1 haven't done anything wrong, have I?" she asked. "You said you'd be at this hotel, and get here about twelve-thirty. Oh! Forgive me! This is Mr. . . . Lieutenant . . . Captain . . ."

  "Captain Ashcroft," interposed the burly man, "Charleston County Police." His eye woke up. "Mr. Grantham? Dr. Gideon Fell?"

  In the back of the car Dr. Fell arose and bowed, an impressive spectacle. Captain Ashcroft addressed him with great formality.

  "When you've checked in, sir, you and Mr. Grantham, I'd be right glad of a word off the record. Fair enough, sir?"

  "The word, sir," Dr. Fell returned with even more powerful formality, "shall be obtained at lunch. Meanwhile, allow me to frame the question with which my young friend has been struggling. Has there been any disturbance at Maynard Hall?"

  Captain Ashcroft deliberated.

  "Well . . . now!" He extended a hand as though to make mesmeric passes. "Nothing to get excited about, maybe. But you could call it a disturbance if you wanted to. Anyway, somebody stole a scarecrow."

  3

  "Would you mind repeating that, Camilla? About last Friday night?"

  "The whole story?"

  They had finished lunch in the air-conditioned coffee-shop at the hotel. Camilla Bruce, Alan Grantham, and Captain Ashcroft sat at a table for four. Across the road, beyond a wall of plate-glass window giving on King Street, amid Marion Square's greenery and flowers. John C. Calhoun on his tall column looked south over a city of what

  Dr. Fell had called pastel colors and graceful church-spires.

  Alan, across the table from Camilla, was very conscious of her nearness. Complexion cream and rose, rich brown hair worn almost to her shoulders, dark-blue eyes straying towards the window whenever he tried to catch them, Camilla fidgeted badly. He had been wrong about the formal appearance of her dress; at close range Camilla's figure made it anything but formal.

  'The whole story?" she repeated. "Really—!"

  Captain Ashcroft put his elbows on the table.

  "Now, ma'am," he was insidiously persuasive, "you just do what Mr. Grantham tells you to do. Yes, the whole story; I'd like to hear it again myself. Not about the scarecrow, maybe. To my way of thinking that's not important The no-counts of this world would ste
al anything! They got your scarecrow, ma'am; nobody else did."

  "The scarecrow," Alan interjected, "wasn't in a cornfield, then?"

  Camilla's gentle voice held a note of pain. "Oh, Alan, you're thinking of The Wizard of Oz!" "Am I?"

  "How often have you seen a scarecrow in a cornfield? People put up scarecrows wherever they think the birds may do some damage. This one, as I've tried to explain, was in the garden at the back of the Hall. Madge put it up when they first came there in April; I helped her. She found a bag of salt that was just the right size for the head. She took one of her father's good suits and hats. Mr. Maynard didn't like that; he didn't say much, but you could feel him breathing annoyance as soon as he saw it."

  "I don't blame him, Camilla. Dandyism in a scarecrow seems out of place."

  "Realism isn't out of place, surely? The colored gardener gave us a kind of bib-thing to hold it together. Madge and I stuffed the scarecrow with straw; maybe we were thinking of The Wizard of Oz. We pinned the bib-thing inside the coat, and tied the arms and legs togther with twine. It was a beautiful scarecrow."

  "I'll bet it was."

  "Alan Grantham, will you please stop sitting there and sneering every time I open my mouth?" "I wasn't sneering, Camilla."

  "You were; you know you were; you always do! I can’t say one word without being picked up on it!"

  Captain Ashcroft made a massive and pacifying gesture.

  "Now, ma'am," he said at his most fatherly, "you forget the scarecrow. What bothers me is all that hoo-ha in the middle of the night. Yes, yes, I know the others have given me their versions! Suppose you tell us yours again, as you told Dr. Fell a while ago?"

  "Where is Dr. Fell?"

  "You've not forgotten, ma'am, he was called to the phone hardly three minutes ago? And that reminds me. Mr. Grantham, do you know a man named Spinelli, Lieutenant Carlo Spinelli, in Westchester County outside New York?"