Dark of the moon - Dr. Gideon Fell 22

by John Dickson Carr

"If you ask me," Captain Ashcroft said with a certain awe, "you haven't missed much so far."

  "I have missed the method! I have missed the mechanics! I have looked out to sea; I am lost."

  "Well, keep lookin'. The theory you outlined to me," Captain Ashcroft was beginning to rave, "is the damnedest thing I ever heard in my life. I don't like it; I don't like it a bit; there'll be big trouble soon. But it hangs together; it makes sense when nothing else does. Allow we can prove it, which we ought to be able to do: where do we go from there? What's next?"

  "Next?"

  "You've given the motive, or at least a very strong motive. But which one of 'em does it apply to? There's not one single indication of who the murderer is!"

  "You think not?"

  "Well, I don't see one. All it tells us is something else about Henry himself. And he's dead; he can't help now."

  "Sir," returned Dr. Fell, pointing his stick at the antique desk, "are you sure he can't help now? This afternoon, to Alan Grantham and myself, he spoke of certain papers—perhaps only a paper; he was not clear—in a"secret drawer of that desk. He said, of course, the document related only to family matters."

  "And you didn't believe him?"

  "Candidly, I did not believe him for one moment. - In that respect, as in other respects, he lied in his teeth. Always provided I am right, a certain important paper—not relating to family matters, to himself or to Madge either —was in the secret drawer this afternoon. Again provided I am right, it may still be there. But it won't stay there, believe me."

  "The murderer'll steal it, you mean?"

  "I do. Madge Maynard, who distinctly is not the murderer, tried and failed to find the secret drawer and its contents. Who else might succeed where she failed?"

  "Just a minute! Hold on, there! If the murderer already knows where the secret drawer is, wouldn't he have swiped that damn paper long ago?"

  "Perhaps, but I doubt it."

  "Why?"

  "So long as Henry Maynard was still alive," declared Dr. Fell, with the air of one making himself radiantly clear, "the prospective murderer had no reason to steal the document and every reason not to steal it. With Maynard dead, the whole picture changes. If the murderer has anticipated our thoughts and got here before us to take the document, we are royally snookered; there is no more to be said. If he hasn't (and I suspect he hasn't) then our course is clear. Can't you make some excuse to impound that desk and remove it from the house while we ourselves investigate?"

  "Yes," yelled Captain Ashcroft, "and I can do better than that. There's a man in the C.C.P.D. whose hobby is antique furniture. He's bats on antique furniture; there's nothing he don't know about it, like a minister knowing the Bible. If there's a secret drawer with a paper inside —which is a mighty big 'if,' but I'll go along with you— Jerry Wexford will find it. How far that'll help us is anybody's guess. We're still in one hell of a mess . . ."

  "As you rightly point out," Dr. Fell agreed, "we are still in one hell of a mess. But the mists commence to thin a little, do they not? And Henry Maynard can still be of assistance. The late lamented gave us clues in spite of himself; at no time did I like the way he was behaving."

  "I don't like the way anybody's behavin' Take Mrs. Huret, for instance."

  "What about her?"

  "Do you know she was listening a part of the time when you and I talked in the weapons-room?

  I COULD MURDER PEOPLE WHO LISTEN TO PRIVATE CONVERSATIONS. Never mind: nobody listenin' to us. In the weapons-room you said—remember?—you wondered how many boyfriends Madge Maynard kept on a string."

  "I said suitors, not boyfriends. But we will not argue the point."

  "Well, Mrs. Huret picked up the word 'string’ and latched on to it. She thinks, or says she thinks, Madge herself may be the next one in danger. That's not likely; considering what we know, it's the unlikeliest thing of all; but she had me rattled for a minute. She also claims you said the solution of the case depends on a piece of string."

  "Sir," Dr. Fell announced majestically, "it is not the first time today I have been misunderstood. However, since you mention the lady, I confess to a certain curiosity. She was here in the house when Grantham and I first arrived this afternoon. Subsequently, we are told, she departed in something of a hurry, only to return shortly before six. Paying no attention to your obedient servant or anyone else in the library, she headed straight upstairs and descended with our host.

  "What did she want on that occasion? During a questioning-session between about a quarter to ten and eleven-thirty, you yourself asked her the same question. She replied that she had something to tell Henry Maynard. But she failed to elaborate, and you did not press her."

  Captain Ashcroft shook his fist.

  "I didn't press her," he said, "because what would have been the good if I had? Her attitude is, 'It's-only-poor-me-I'm-not-responsible-am-I?' There's a lot of women like that. They make you mad and you can't get through to 'em. But they're harmless, mostly. And we agreed, didn't we, Mrs. Huret's not mixed up in the funny business?

  "I've got something about her that's not entirely negative. The only servant we questioned in the library was old George. But once, you remember, I excused myself for ten or fifteen minutes? I hiked down to the kitchen and cornered the other four houseservants: the three maids and Ben Jones, the cook."

  "Isn't there a gardener called Sam? The one who keeps the surface of the terrace smooth, and in fact smoothed it down this morning so that it took perfect footprints after the rain?"

  "Yes. But Sam—Samuel Butler, his full name is— don't live in the house. The servants were as bad as the guests; nobody saw or heard anything. Oh, except just a little bit!- One of the maids, Winnie Mae, was on the top floor for a minute or two when Mrs. Huret went up to see Henry. Winnie Mae says they both seemed angry, and Mrs. Huret called Henry a fraud. Winnie Mae didn't stay any longer; she was afraid to, and ran down the back stairs.

  "Well, now," Captain Ashcroft went on argumentatively, "in one way Henry was a fraud, though Mrs. Huret couldn't have known that in the way we now know it. He was the real Henry Maynard, but in one sense he was a fraud; he may have been a fraud in others too. Anyway, I can't see it means much. These people are a mighty casual bunch; they run in and out, they run back and forth, not always with a good reason for doin' it Was there anything else on your mind?"

  "Yes, to a degree," said Dr. Fell. "There is one rather enigmatic character who seems to have attracted no attention at all. I refer, of course, to Dr. Mark Sheldon."

  Captain Ashcroft stared at him.

  "Great God in the bushes! Mark Sheldon's got nothing to do with this, you know. You're not suspectin' him, are you?"

  "I did not say I suspected him. I say merely that he also is conspicuous among those who run back and forth. He called with a message for Mr. Maynard which he failed to deliver. Unlike Mrs. Huret, he has not returned twice. He did return once, and seems to have departed again before the murder. On neither occasion was his errand explained. But no doubt we can forget him, if you would rather."

  "Yes, frankly I think I'd rather. He's a fine young fellow with a mighty nice wife; he'd no more be mixed up with murder than he'd be mixed up with drugs or abortion! The thing we've got to get after," Captain Ashcroft turned to point, "is that desk and whatever's inside it. Thank God there'll be no more funny business for one night! No more o' that, anyhow. No more—"

  Then the screams began.

  From somewhere below, probably the ground floor, they went shrilling up in a wordless, almost mindless terror; they jabbed the nerves like a needle under a tooth. Alan's left arm was around Camilla; he raised it under her shoulder, swinging her round and almost swinging her off her feet. They were flying back down the stairs on tiptoe before Dr. Fell or Captain Ashcroft could move.

  Constantly, as they stood so close together and listened, he had been tempted to press her still closer, lift her head, and kiss her at some length. Now, with screams piercing up at that dead hour o
f the morning, he knew it would have been the wrong moment.

  That they did not stumble may be accounted something of a miracle. The bedroom floor swam in half-light. Sergeant Duckworth had risen from his chair beside Madge's door; otherwise he had not moved. Rip Hillboro, in candy-striped pajamas, seemed to materialize from nowhere. Alan and Camilla had reached the head of the main staircase when they heard Captain Ashcroft plunge down the enclosed stairs like a charging bull. Dragging Camilla after him, Alan descended the remaining steps.

  In the lower hall Valerie Huret, the back of one hand pressed to her open mouth, stood rigid with incipient hysteria. In reply to Alan's look she stabbed her finger towards the door of the library; then, as he made for it, she ran past him and pointed frantically at the door of the weapons-room, which stood wide open. Alan reached the weapons-room with Camilla only a step behind him.

  The crystal chandelier still glowed. On the blackboard from which Captain Ashcroft had erased one message, there was now another. In that room of white walls, with block letters carefully punctuated, the white letters stood out against blackboard, black portraits, and black weapons.

  THE MAN TO BE SOUGHT IS MADGE'S LOVER. FIND HIM; DON'T SO EASILY BE PUT OFF QUESTIONING HER. AND, IF YOU WOULD LEARN ABOUT THE MURDER, MORE TOMORROW. I HAVE NOT FINISHED.

  Ever yours to command, N.S.

  12

  That had been Friday, May 14th. Despite all omens of good weather, the sky over Charleston looked dark and threatening on Saturday morning.

  At half-past nine Alan, in his room on the seventh floor of the Francis Marion Hotel, awoke to the ringing of the telephone. It was Dr. Fell, who himself had been roused by a summons shortly before.

  They breakfasted in the coffee-shop at ten o'clock, after which Alan's car took the now-familiar road to James Island. There was very little talk on the way. Damp, smoky-looking clouds curled low above Maynard Hall as they drove into the grounds at just past eleven.

  Yancey Beale, a silk scarf knotted round his throat and thrust into the open neck of his shirt, emerged from the screen door and descended the front steps with an air of repressed excitement.

  "He phoned you, didn't he?" Yancey demanded. "Old —no, wait! Got to stop callin' him Hezekiah and Judas Maccabaeus and the Prophet Ezekiel. Wasn't very funny even at the start. Now, with Pa Maynard dead and Madge still so prostrated the doctor won't let her get up, you've got to have a peculiar sense of humor if you can split your sides over biblical names. But he did phone, didn't he?"

  "Yes, he phoned," replied Dr. Fell, "though with nothing to explain the urgency. Did something else happen after we left here?"

  "There was quite some rumpus before you left, wasn't there?"

  "Indubitably; but—"

  Yancey lifted a quizzical eyebrow.

  "Let's see if I've got it straight," he continued. "Last night, after some of us had gone to bed, Madge went wandering in the attic and collapsed again. Captain Ashcroft posted a guard at her door and sent Valerie Huret downstairs to phone Dr. Wickfield. Right?"

  "Right," agreed Alan.

  "After Valerie phoned, she went back upstairs. The sergeant of the Sanhedrin wouldn't let her into Madge's room. Even Valerie didn't have the nerve to rout somebody out of bed, and she didn't dare go to the attic when the sergeant told her Dr. Fell and old Caiaphas were in close conference.

  "But she had to have company of some kind. She grabbed the telephone again; she called practically everybody she knew, one person after another, and kept it up for some time. The last person she called didn't like being waked up at one in the morning just to be asked how things were, and told her to get lost.

  "Valerie stalked away from that phone, not knowing quite what to do. In she went, first to the library and then the weapons-room. There she walked into a second blackboard message (I don't understand that message!) writ large in ghostly hand. She hadn't seen the first one, but that did it. Valerie lost her head and screamed the house down.

  "By that time I was awake; we were all awake. You people left not long afterwards. I'm the only one who saw Captain Ashcroft and the sergeant carry that Sheraton desk down the back stairs and smuggle it out of the house like their own guilty secret. I haven't mentioned it so far; police business is their own business; and nobody else noticed because Valerie was still having a fit in the library."

  "Sir—" Dr. Fell began portentously.

  "Takes a lot to discourage that gal, though. She was the last to leave last night; she's here again today. Her

  car's around the north side of the house, near the garage with Pa Maynard's three cars. The others are having breakfast now; Valerie's with 'em. Captain Ashcroft is here too. He—"

  "Mr. Beale," thundered Dr. Fell, "may I cut short a twice-told tale to repeat my question? Has there been some other development?"

  "Compared with what's happened already," said Yancey, "you can't call it much. Still, there was at least one other incident you'll want to hear about. Come with me."

  In his loose-limbed stride he led the way round the south side of the Hall, past the wing with library and weapons-room. From the middle of the house's back a smaller red-brick wing had been built out westwards. Through glass doors giving on a flagstone terrace they could see the modern furniture of two modern rooms like lounges. This newer wing divided the back garden into two parts. The south side, the only one now visible, stretched away in a riot of bloom. At its fringes rose cypresses and weeping willows, romantic or funereal according to your mood.

  Down a sanded path, with benches on either side and a sun-dial in the middle, Yancey went on talking over his shoulder.

  "Forgot to tell you," he said. "The cops are releasin' me today. I can go home, that is, because I live in Charleston and I'm still available if anybody wants me. The others can't go; they mustn't leave town, it seems. But Ashcroft and Co. can't keep 'em here forever. The inquest's on Monday; after that, maybe, the bloodhounds will relent Meanwhile, about last night . . ."

  The western boundary of the garden was marked by an eight-foot evergreen hedge with an arch cut in it. Beyond, at the end of a beaten-earth path which straggled for perhaps a hundred yards through coarse grass, loomed up ten little one-storey houses, five on either side of the path. Formerly slave-cabins in the bad old days, their red brick had faded to a dull pink blotched with white like the white of the cement between the bricks. Over peaked roofs, irregular red tiles also sun-bleached, great trees drooped their foliage behind the cabins.

  Yancey ducked through the opening in the hedge, two strides farther on, then stopped and turned to face his companions as they followed him.

  "You were saying?" prompted Dr. Fell. "About last night?"

  Yancey cast up his eyes.

  "Last night?" he repeated. "Gettin' on for two o'clock in the morning, more like. You people had gone long ago; Valerie was gone too. Rip Hillboro had turned in to get the rest of his interrupted sleep; so had Bob Crandall, who's not very good-tempered if you keep wakin' him up.

  "The only ones left were Camilla Bruce and myself. Oh, and Sergeant Duckworth! After he helped the high priest carry that desk down to the car, old Ashcroft posted him to stand guard for the rest of the night outside Madge's door. Camilla said to me, 'About time you and I turned in too, don't you think?' I agreed it was. She went to her room, which is at the back of the house and faces in this direction; but in one second flat she ran out again yelling fire."

  "Yelling what?" demanded Dr. Fell.

  "May I answer that?" interposed Camilla's voice.

  And Camilla, her allure no whit diminished that overcast morning, hurried through the arch in the hedge. She wore a fleecy tan sweater and a brown skirt, with tan stockings and brown shoes. To Alan there seemed something different about her manner; for a moment he could not place it.

  "I was not yelling, if you please," she said. "It seemed to me I was quite reasonably calm. But I looked out of my window. Out here, just beyond the farthest slave-cabin on the right, I could see something
burning. It was not a large blaze, though it seemed a fairly fierce one. So I told Yancey, as I tell you now . . ."

  "Yes, Miss Bruce," encouraged Captain Ashcroft, ducking through the hedge to join them and straightening up massively, "you've told the others; you've told me; now tell Dr. Fell." He looked at Yancey. "And you, young fellow—!"

  "Well!" said Yancey. "What could I do but charge out here, as it seems I've been chargin' at something every night for about two weeks? Come and see what I found."

  He strode ahead, with the others following. Alan ranged beside Camilla, who this morning would not look at him.

  A little way beyond the farthest slave-cabin on the right, whose door hung drunkenly open, there was a large bare patch in the grass. Litter indicated that trash had been burned there at some distant time, as well as charred and blackened fragments of a burning much more recent.

  The earth still breathed a dull, dead scent of cloth not quite consumed. There was another odor too.

  "Kerosene!" said Captain Ashcroft, squaring himself. "Cans of it in the cellar, they tell me. All right; I was wrong!" He bent over the debris, and picked up a crumpled piece of straw burnt only at one end. "Wasn't any sneak-thief took that scarecrow after all. Look here! Look at these cabins!"

  He pulled the door of the nearest cabin wide open, poked his head inside, and turned back again.

  "Littered with junk, every one of 'em. Old boxes, busted furniture, every kind of odds and ends. There's even a discarded horse-trough in this one. You know, Dr. Fell, I ought to turn in my badge!"

  "The step, sir, seems both drastic and unnecessary. Why should you turn in your badge?"

  "Because by this time I must be old and useless; I've got softening of the brain. I was so dead-set hypnotized with the notion some no-'count sneak-thief took the scarecrow for the value of a suit of clothes ... I was so hypnotized, damn my britches, I never did search these cabins as I ought to 'a' done! We see now, don't we?"