The Dreadful Hollow

by Nicholas Blake

  Nigel pushed aside the timetable impatiently. One could get no farther with it till Charles Blick’s story had been told. If he was at the rendezvous just before eleven, and smoked two cigarettes there, he must have moved off not long before Durdle returned to the spot at 11:25. The simplest explanation was that, hearing Durdle’s footsteps and somebody else’s converging upon him just then, he’d decided the place was too public for meeting Rosebay, and had gone quietly off home again. Then it might have been he, after all, whom the Hall cook had seen.

  Nigel could not imagine any other explanation of Charles’s movements which was both natural and innocent. But suppose he were not innocent. Suppose he agreed to the rendezvous with Rosebay as the ideal device for getting her away from the house and grounds while he was disposing of his father’s body, drugged by Celandine. Nigel sat up in some excitement, and studied his timetable again. Charles could have smoked one cigarette on the way up—the one Durdle smelled, and dropped its butt together with an old one beside the hedge. He would arrive several minutes too early at the “rendezvous,” so as not to meet Rosebay. He would hear Durdle move off, lie low for a minute, then go on toward the Little Manor, making a detour to avoid Rosebay, and be ready on the scene of action at 11 o’clock. This would give him twenty minutes to do what had to be done. The “slow, irregular steps” Durdle heard at 11:10 could be Charles dragging his insensible father to the electric carriage. He would push the body in it silently up to the quarry, unaware of having dropped his handkerchief on the way, return to the house, replace the carriage in the shed, and go straight home, being heard by Durdle crossing the road at 11:25. It could all be done comfortably in the time.

  But what about the person Durdle had heard returning ten minutes later. Nigel struck his fist on the table in excitement. He’d got it! Charles, arrived at the Hall, finds his handkerchief is lost and goes stumbling back in panic to look for it, knowing he has left a damning clue behind somewhere.

  At this point, Nigel’s thought processes were interrupted by the arrival of Blount, who invited him to walk up to the Hall, where he was going to take a statement from Stanford Blick. Nigel beguiled the way by expounding his latest theory. After hearing him out in somewhat discouraging silence, the Superintendent remarked: “The trouble with you, Strangeways, is that you think too much and don’t use your imagination enough.”

  “Well, I must say!”

  “I’ll not deny,” Blount remorselessly continued, “that your theory has points of interest—e-eh—academically speaking. Aye, it’s a beautiful frame. It only lacks the picture inside it. Isn’t that so, Reid?”

  “I dare say you’re right, sir,” said the Detective Sergeant diplomatically.

  “The picture now,” Blount expatiated with mounting enthusiasm. “There’s Charles Blick outside the house, Miss Chantmerle and Sir Archibald in the drawing room. Charles is waiting for a signal from his accomplice to tell him the old man’s asleep and he can enter.”

  “Surely he’d just look in through the drawing-room windows? Why a signal?”

  Blount beamed at him in a pitying manner. “D’you suppose Celandine would leave the curtains undrawn when Rosebay was outside the house and might look in and see the dirty work going on?”

  “But—”

  “No, wait a minute. At some point Celandine asks Sir Archibald to close the curtains; or maybe she does it herself in that wheel chair. Maybe that’s the signal Charles was awaiting. Charles enters. He has to convey the sleeping man outside to the electric carriage. Picture it. Use your imagination. Now then, Reid, what would you do first?”

  “Make sure the other sister was really out of the house.”

  Blount smacked his large hands together. “Exactly! There’d be no danger from Charity Cooper. She’s deafish. Her room is at the other end of the house, and faces away from the drive and the shed where the carriage is kept. But how could they be certain Rosebay wouldn’t come back from the upper meadow and surprise them? or that she’d kept the assignation at all?”

  “That’s surely a risk they’d have to take?”

  Blount’s eyes twinkled at Nigel from behind his old-fashioned pince-nez. “Why take the risk when it could be avoided?”

  “I don’t get you.”

  “Think back to what that loon, Durdle, told us. Something that contradicted a bit of Miss Rosebay’s evidence.”

  Nigel thought hard for a minute. “Oh lord, yes! You’re perfectly right. The drink she took.”

  “Precisely. Durdle said she knocked back a dram of whisky her sister had sipped from. Now, here’s my picture of it. The assignation in the upper meadow was the original plan. But Celandine’s an intelligent woman. She sees how risky it is. And, when she finds there’s an opportunity to dope a glass of whisky, she seizes it; takes a sip or two herself, hands the glass to her sister. Rosebay is neutralized for the rest of the night—the stuff has half an hour to work before Charles is due. And it’s later Celandine drops a powder into Sir Archibald’s glass.”

  “Yes, I admit that’s much more plausible. But how do you account for Rosebay’s telling all those fibs, then?”

  “She’s a vairy loyal, protective kind of lassie. I agree with you there. She’d wake up the next morning with a bit of a head. And when she hears about the dead man having had a sleeping draught, she’ll put two and two together. She thinks to herself, if I say I heard Sir Archibald leave at 11:20, and brought the drinks only ten minutes earlier, it’ll help to clear Celandine, for it’ll strongly suggest that the drug could not have been administered to him here, before he left.”

  They were now turning in at the Hall gate. Emerging from the avenue, they saw Stanford Blick reclining in a hammock under the cedar tree which overspread the lawn. They also caught a glimpse of a woman’s figure and red hair just disappearing round the side of the house. The dogs broke into their demented barking.

  Stanford, looking bizarre as ever in his muffler and stained cloth cap, rose to greet them.

  “Have I the honor of addressing Superintendent Blount? Your fame is known even in these remote parts, dear sir. There are deck chairs behind the cedar. Pray draw them up, and let’s have a jolly confab.”

  Blount wore an expression, familiar to Nigel, which being interpreted meant, “All right, laddie, I’ll sort you presently.” For the moment, he was content to offer formal condolences, which Stanford received with a kind of inattentive dignity.

  “I’m hoping, sir, you may be able to amplify the statement you made to Inspector Randall.”

  Stanford nodded absently. Then he raised a vivacious finger: “Ah, I thought so. The willow warbler. Hear it? A very sporting little songster, don’t you think?” He peered up into the branches of the cedar. “Birds in the high Hall-garden,” he remarked. “A much underrated poet, Tennyson, you agree? ‘What matter if I go mad? I shall have had my day.’”

  “Just so, sir. You inherit all this property?”

  “The estate? Yes, I believe so.”

  “And your father’s money? How does that go?”

  “There are a number of bequests, to dotty things like his eugenics society. My brother and I are the residuary legatees. I get two-thirds and he gets a third.”

  “A very large sum it will be, I dare say.”

  “Oh yes, a tidy whack. Unless of course he altered his will recently.”

  “Had he threatened to do so, sir?”

  “My dear old Super, Pop was always threatening to cut us off with a shilling. But he’d never have done it, really; he believed in The Family, you see.” Stanford’s voice had its rueful, husky tone which might break out any moment, one felt, into a chuckle.

  “Did he make any such threats on the afternoon of his death? I understand you had a quarrel with him.”

  “Oh, I must explain. That was about Susie. He thought I was spending too much money on her. The fact is, of course, he was quite interested in her himself. But I’d been having a lot of trouble with her—her bearings would keep overheatin
g, poor girl. Pop had rather lost his nerve, and said he couldn’t go on financing her.”

  Detective Sergeant Reid’s pencil appeared to have frozen to the page of his notebook during this explanation.

  “But that would have blown over anyway,” Stanford went on. “And I was able to persuade him Susie was ready now for any bench tests he cared to have made.”

  Comprehension dawned on Sergeant Reid’s fresh young face.

  “No, the big bang came when I tried to put in a word for Chas and Rosebay. Couldn’t shake the old boy on that.”

  Blount questioned him at some length over this point, then moved on to dinner that night. It had been rather a grim affair, Stanford conceded. They had started late, which upset the cook, which upset his father’s temper and digestion; conversation had not flowed. They did not rise from table till nine o’clock, and Sir Archibald had gone straight to the room he used as a study, to deal with some urgent work which his interviews that afternoon had compelled him to postpone.

  “It was damned awkward for old Chas. He’d been screwing himself up to have a démarche with Pop after dinner. But it’s always been a tradition in our family, when Pop retires to work, he’s left undisturbed. Chas thought he’d beard him when he’d finished. But then Pop put his head in at the door and told us he was going up to the Little Manor, so poor old Chas was balked again.”

  “This was a bit before ten?”

  “Yes.”

  “What state of mind would you say your brother was in? Did he—e-eh—express indignation at your father’s attitude toward his engagement?”

  Stanford’s brown, shining eyes regarded Blount steadfastly.

  “He didn’t threaten to bump him off, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Really, sir, you mustn’t twist my words.”

  “I wasn’t twisting—only interpreting them.”

  The air between them seemed to quiver, as if after an inaudible clash of steel on steel.

  “Chas was nervy, down in the mouth, rather perplexed. My impression was that he didn’t quite know where he stood, about young Rosebay—stood with himself, I mean.”

  “So, shortly after ten-thirty, you both went to bed?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And you didn’t hear your brother going out, a quarter of an hour later, to meet his fiancée?”

  If Blount intended this as a bombshell, it quite failed to detonate. Stanford, in his chattiest manner, replied, “No. Chas is a secretive chap, rather. Young Rosebay’s just been telling me about it. Puts Chas on the spot a bit, I suppose?”

  “It puts him on the scene of the crime at the relevant period,” Blount formidably replied.

  “Yes, so it does.” Stanford didn’t seem at all perturbed. “Rosebay also told me you suspect her of doping Pop’s drink. Or her sister.”

  “They both had access to sleeping powder.”

  “So have Chas and I. Kept in the bathroom cupboard. Same prescription as Celandine’s. So did Pop.”

  “I don’t quite follow you.”

  “Pop often carried it about with him. Not in powder form. Pills. Same ingredients, though, I believe. Or rather, a pill.”

  There could be no doubt of the effect of Stanford’s countermine, if such it was designed to be. Sergeant Reid’s pencil was paralyzed; even Blount blinked hard, as if he had cracked his shin in the dark.

  “Why haven’t I been told of this?” he demanded.

  “Well, the point hadn’t arisen when Randall came to see me.”

  Stanford, his blackened teeth showing in an amiable grin, enlarged on it.

  “I expect Strangeways noticed that little silver matchcase Pop used to fiddle with. He generally had a sleeping pill in it. His valet was supposed to replenish it. He’d never carry more than one at a time, because he was afraid of contracting the drug habit—he’d a number of rather quaint phobias like that, poor old boy. Did you find the matchcase on his body?”

  It had been found near Sir Archibald’s body, Blount told them, having apparently fallen out of his waistcoat pocket. It was lying, open, in a pool of water. At Blount’s request, Stanford now summoned Sir Archibald’s valet—by ringing a large, brass hand bell which stood on the grass near the hammock. The valet testified that he had put a pill in the silver box when laying out his employer’s clothes for dinner that night.

  This information, Nigel reflected, altered the whole aspect of the case. Two possibilities arose from it. The box having been found empty proved nothing, since it had also been found open; the pill might have fallen out of it; and if so, it would have been dissolved in the water where the body was lying. But suppose Sir Archibald had swallowed the pill—just before or after leaving the Little Manor? It was not unthinkable. The fact that he was in the habit of carrying one about with him suggested that he was prepared to take a strong sedative when and where he needed it, not necessarily in his own home before going to bed. Suspicion was, at any rate, no longer concentrated upon the Chantmerles. Daniel Durdle, Mark Raynham and Charles Blick had all been near the scene of the crime that night; any one of them might have met Sir Archibald on his way back to the Hall, stunned him and hurled his still living body into the quarry—granted always that the composition of his sleeping pills corresponded with the analysis of the sedative found in his organs.

  Nigel gazed round him, at the cedar, the lawn, the elaborate façade of the Hall. They had become strangely unreal in this dull, lowering day, as if a gauze had been interposed, making the scene behind it ghostly. It was unreal, of course. The theories spun by his active brain, even this group of solid men conversing beneath the cedar tree, seemed insubstantial compared with the activity which had been going on all over Prior’s Umborne: the policemen quartering the upper meadow; Blount’s assistants, at the Hall, the Little Manor, the post office, the vicarage, minutely examining clothes and shoes for telltale traces, interviewing servants, searching, making inquiries from house to house in case any suspicious movements had been noticed on the night of the crime; all this background activity, patient, deliberate, relentless, was the real thing.

  With an effort, Nigel dragged his attention back to the scene upon the lawn. Superintendent Blount had returned to the night when Sir Archibald was killed. Stanford went to sleep, he repeated, soon after getting to bed. The dogs awoke him. Then he went off to sleep again. He did not know when his brother returned; Charles had breakfasted before him next morning.

  “So you can tell us nothing more about that night? Your brother has never discussed it with you?”

  “He has not discussed his own movements, no.” Stanford hesitated. An enigmatic look, half calculating, half teasing, came over his face. The rich, husky voice took on a deeper resonance as he said: “I remember the time, for the roots of my hair were stirred by a shuffled step, by a dead weight trailed, by a whispered fright.”

  Nigel felt a queer chill between his shoulder blades. Sergeant Reid glanced covertly at Blount, as if inquiring whether this should be taken down in evidence.

  “Meaning precisely what, sir?” asked Blount. “You’ve remembered something, you say?”

  Stanford gave his wild, leprechaun smile. “That depends. I don’t suppose you consider dreams as evidence?”

  “I think we might as well hear it,” Nigel put in quickly. “You had a dream that night—a nightmare? which has something to do with Tennyson?”

  “Good old Strangebugs. Knew I could rely on you. Not about the eminent poet, but—”

  “Look here, sir, I’m a busy man,” Blount began.

  “I’ll not detain you long. And you really should keep an open mind about these things. Extrasensory perception—for example—what you call telepathy—there’s been a great deal of experimental work on it, and positive results obtained. Prophetic dreams are a branch of the subject. I don’t mean the real prophetic dream, which has to be explained by a theory of time slipping out of gear into neutral, so to speak. I’m talking of the apparent hallucination behind a lot of ghost st
ories—chap’s wife, mother or what not appears in his room at what turns out to be the very moment she died fifty miles away. Old wives’ tales can teach the scientists plenty, believe me.”

  Stanford’s eyes were glancing brilliantly, almost feverishly, between Blount and Nigel.

  “You’re telling us you had a dream about your father’s death?” Blount’s manner was curt and restive; but, like the Ancient Mariner, Stanford gripped his unwilling audience.

  “Yes. A very queer dream indeed.” The man’s voice took on the muted, thrilling tone of one who tells a ghost story. “The extraordinary thing about it was that I saw two Pops.”

  “Saw two pops?” muttered Detective Sergeant Reid involuntarily, his pencil jerking suddenly as if a planchette board, not a notebook, lay beneath it.

  “I seemed to be looking down from above. It was night, but I could see Dinny’s electric carriage standing on a lawn. For some reason, it was absolutely horrifying—just the sight of it standing there, empty, and unattended. I’d no sense of place. Or rather, it hadn’t any significance at first. It must have been the strip of lawn outside their front door, bordering the drive. I suppose the sensation of something horribly wrong came from, or was symbolized by, the carriage being on the grass, not on the drive itself. There it was, anyway, waiting. I knew it was waiting for something. So was I. Then two figures emerged right below me. One was holding the other under the armpits and sort of shuffling backward with it, dragging it toward the carriage, I wanted to scream out—to stop the whole thing; but I couldn’t. I knew that, if the two figures reached the electric carriage, it would be the end. But they did. And it wasn’t. I remember there was a sort of break in the film, so the next thing I saw was one of the figures in the carriage and the other starting to turn it and push it away. Like a kid pushing a Guy Fawkes dummy in a hand cart. The peak of the nightmare came then. You see, the figures were the same figure.”