Menace for Dr. Morelle

by Ernest Dudley

  “I should wish to question you more closely,” the Doctor said precisely. “I’m sure you will understand I do so only in the interests of justice.”

  Baron Xavier bowed slightly.

  “Was this man a personal friend of yours?”

  The Baron’s eyes were fixed intently on the Doctor as he answered: “Officially he was my private secretary, as he had been my father’s before me. But in reality he was more than that. He was the only friend I had left in the world.”

  “In his capacity of secretary, what would his duties entail which might bring him into danger from your political enemies?”

  Miss Frayle thought the Baron’s attitude suddenly tensed before he made his reply. It was as if the question Doctor Morelle had put to him was one he found somewhat difficult to answer straightforwardly. He said, a certain abruptness in his tone:

  “It is difficult to know exactly.”

  “Can you not offer any suggestion?” the Doctor persisted.

  “I—possibly while he was acting as a courier between my country and this, he might have put himself in danger from my enemies,” was the hesitant reply.

  Doctor Morelle said quietly, “Your ex-country, I presume you mean?”

  Baron Xavier’s jaw tightened. He seemed about to make an angry response, but the Doctor gave him no time.

  “Do not misunderstand me, Baron Xavier. I merely wish to remind you to keep to the facts in this case, for it is when facts become coloured with extraneous embellishment that the truth grows more and more difficult to disentangle from fiction.”

  The Baron made a little bow in acknowledgment of the Doctor’s observation.

  “You stated your secretary’s duties included acting as courier between London and the Continent,” Doctor Morelle proceeded smoothly. “When he was in this country, where did he reside?”

  Again Miss Frayle thought she detected that almost imperceptible tension manifested by the other before he answered.

  “At Stormhaven Towers——” he began, and was interrupted by a sudden cry from Sherry Carfax.

  “Hugh’s home!”

  He glanced at her and nodded, then back to Doctor Morelle. “That is so—Sir Hugh Albany’s home in Sussex.”

  “In the vicinity of Haywards Heath,” the Doctor added.

  Baron Xavier gave him a sharp look and was about to say something, but Sherry Carfax interrupted him with:

  “Hugh never told me anything about it.”

  The Baron turned to her. “I’m sorry,” he said, and there was a new note of gentleness in his tone, “but Hugh understood I wished to keep Stefan’s presence there a secret.”

  “Oh . . .” the girl said, but a puzzled frown flitted across her face and lingered there.

  “Why secret?”

  It was Doctor Morelle once again who put the question quietly but incisively through a puff of cigarette-smoke. The Baron spread out his hands in a little gesture of helplessness.

  “It is perhaps difficult for you to appreciate the difficulties we were in, Doctor. The—country that was mine”—with an eye on Doctor Morelle he chose his words carefully—“has been in a state of political chaos since the Royal House was overthrown. Those who drove me out undoubtedly have agents abroad. I didn’t know whether there might be any in this country, and so Stefan and I agreed it would be wiser for him to remain under cover.”

  He paused a moment, dabbed his mouth with a silk handkerchief from his breast-pocket, and then continued:

  “He had contacts which made it possible for him to travel to and fro without his identity being in danger, but that was only so long as his association with me remained undiscovered.” He emphasized the words deliberately. “That was why Sir Hugh so very kindly allowed him to stay at Stormhaven Towers while he was over here.”

  Doctor Morelle eyed the tip of his cigarette abstractedly.

  “Have you any suspicion regarding any individual or individuals who may be connected with this murder? Had the deceased any particular enemy, to your knowledge?”

  “I know no more than I have already told you.”

  For a moment there was silence. Then suddenly Sherry Carfax jumped to her feet with a sharp exclamation.

  “What are we doing, just talking—talking like this?” She pointed at Doctor Morelle. “Can’t you see something’s happened to Hugh? The Baron’s secretary had been staying at Stormhaven Towers. Now we find him dead here—in Hugh’s flat! And Hugh is missing! Isn’t it obvious there must be some connection between the murder and Hugh? I know something’s happened to him! I know it!”

  She crossed to Doctor Morelle, her face anguished.

  “You must do something!” she cried. “You must find out what’s happened to Hugh!”

  “Calm yourself,” Doctor Morelle murmured. “Rest assured everything possible will be done——”

  “Oh! . . . Oh, good gracious!”

  The Doctor swung impatiently upon Miss Frayle, who had uttered the sudden, quiet exclamation. The other two turned to look at her.

  “My dear Miss Frayle!” remarked Doctor Morelle icily. “In what profound depths are you floundering? Or is it merely that you have discovered the presence of a mouse?”

  For once, however, Miss Frayle was heedless of his sarcasm. Her attention was focused intently upon the floor, where a draught from the open door was gently blowing one or two of the many papers scattered about the disordered room. Her eyes remained fixed on a silver-framed photograph which had just been revealed, its glass upwards and broken, underneath some fluttering pages.

  Ignoring the Doctor’s and the others’ scrutiny, she advanced slowly towards the photograph, paused to stare down at it, then with a sudden movement picked it up.

  Her eyes were now saucer-like behind her spectacles as she regarded it as if mesmerized. A moment, and then slowly she glanced up at Doctor Morelle.

  “Doctor!” she breathed. “It is him! That man I told you about in the mews this evening . . . the man with his face covered in blood!”

  Chapter Eight – The Unpredictable Doctor Morelle

  “What do you mean?”

  Sherry Carfax flung out the question, her voice hitting an agitated note as she crossed quickly to Miss Frayle. She took the photograph.

  “This is Hugh!” She stared at Miss Frayle. “What do you mean—the man in the mews?”

  “Oh, dear—oh, dear,” gulped Miss Frayle in distress. “Then it was him—Sir Hugh Albany!”

  Doctor Morelle was at her side.

  “Are you quite sure, Miss Frayle?” he demanded sharply. “We cannot afford to make an error in a matter as vital as this.”

  “Positive,” Miss Frayle told him firmly.

  For the benefit of Sherry Carfax and the Baron, who had turned his gaze on her intently, she recapitulated the story of her encounter in the Mayfair mews. Quickly and with, for her, remarkably little digression, she described her meeting with the young man and his subsequent disappearance upon her return to the mews with the brandy. Sherry Carfax’s face had grown ashen with anxiety and Miss Frayle gave her a sympathetic look as she ended her story.

  “But what’s happened to Hugh now?” Sherry Carfax cried. “He couldn’t just have vanished into thin air!”

  “What time elapsed between your leaving the injured man and your return, Miss Frayle?” Doctor Morelle asked.

  “Well, it—it’s rather difficult for me to remember exactly.”

  Beneath the agonized gaze of the other girl whom she longed desperately to help, and the keen dissecting stare from Doctor Morelle, Miss Frayle began to fluster.

  “Approximately?” the Doctor rapped at her impatiently.

  “The—the place I got the brandy from,” Miss Frayle stammered, “was round the corner——”

  “Did your errand take you five minutes, five hours or five days?” exclaimed Doctor Morelle through his teeth.

  “Oh, I couldn’t have been more than ten minutes at the very most,” Miss Frayle said unhappily. “I was q
uick as could be——”

  The telephone cut across her words with dramatic suddenness and impulsively Sherry Carfax rushed to answer it. Doctor Morelle, however, moving without apparent haste, reached it first.

  “I think it would be better if I spoke,” he observed quietly and lifted the receiver. The others watching him heard him say:

  “This is Sir Hugh Albany’s flat . . . Who is that?”

  The others saw him pause and flick the ash off his cigarette. No sign was to be read in his sharply etched features except for a slight narrowing of his eyes.

  “Who is it?” Sherry Carfax queried in a low voice.

  But he ignored her as he spoke into the telephone again.

  “At what time was this? . . . Thank you. I will be there as quickly as possible, Doctor Bennett.” And he replaced the receiver.

  “Doctor Bennett?” queried Sherry Carfax.

  “What did he say?” Baron Xavier cut in.

  Doctor Morelle stood for a moment in thought without apparently hearing the questions the others threw at him. Then he turned to the girl.

  “Sir Hugh Albany has been found. He is at present in the care of Doctor Bennett.”

  “What’s happened to him? Is he badly hurt? I must see him!”

  “Calm yourself,” Doctor Morelle said quietly. “I can express no personal opinion as to the extent of his injuries for the obvious reason that I have not examined him. According to Doctor Bennett, however, he is suffering from the effects of a bullet-wound in the head. As to what happened to him——” He considered the question judiciously before proceeding:

  “The details at present are largely a matter of conjecture. However . . .” He cleared his throat and continued. “However, I think it can safely be assumed he was murderously attacked and, moreover, the attempt on his life and the murder of your secretary”—with a glance at Baron Xavier—“have some bearing upon each other, possibly even actuated by the same motive——”

  “Doctor Morelle!”

  Sherry Carfax’s voice as she faced him rose forcefully, her eyes blazing. “This may be a matter of academic interest to you, but I don’t give a brass button who tried to kill Hugh or why!”

  “My dear Miss Carfax——”

  But his protest was unceremoniously brushed aside.

  “All I’m concerned with,” Sherry Carfax continued, her voice shrill, almost hysterical, “is that Hugh’s been hurt and is in the hands of some doctor I’ve never heard of! Will you be good enough to tell me where he is so that I can go to him at once?”

  Miss Frayle’s eyes were wide and her mouth a large O as she listened to Sherry Carfax’s attack on the Doctor. Secretly applauding her courage, at the same time she had the uneasy feeling the earth must open and swallow her up for daring to confront the formidable Doctor while he was in the very act, so to speak, of propounding a theory.

  Her surprise was to heighten to utter amazement, however, the next moment. Not a muscle of Doctor Morelle’s lean, saturnine countenance had stirred during Sherry Carfax’s outburst. Perhaps his basilisk stare probed a little deeper beyond her own indignant face, that was all. Then, the corners of his thin mouth twitching faintly, he inclined his head.

  “I stand rebuked,” he murmured gently. “If you will permit me first to telephone the police in order to advise them of the situation here, we will then proceed immediately to Doctor Bennett.”

  It was physically impossible for Miss Frayle’s gaze or mouth to grow any wider. But as Doctor Morelle turned back to the telephone and dialled, she was experiencing the utmost difficulty in crediting her senses. Could she have heard him aright? Or had the evening’s events proved too much for her with the result her imagination was now playing her light-headed tricks? The infallible, the omniscient, Doctor Morelle admitting himself to be in the wrong—and to a slip of a girl, at that! Wonders would never cease!

  Miss Frayle kept a diary, and already was consumed with impatience to jot down her account of what had occurred during the last few hours. But now, capping the evening’s succession of dramatic events, here was the most exciting moment of all! Here was something to which only the brightest red ink would do justice—she would find it impossible to describe the Doctor’s mild acceptance of Sherry Carfax’s rebuke in words alone sufficiently colourful. In fact, she decided there and then, all she felt she would be able to note would be simply:

  “He has a heart after all!”

  More than that would be beyond her powers of description.

  Chapter Nine – Sufficient For The Day

  Although it was now well past midnight, the lights were gleaming from the ground-floor windows of Doctor Bennett’s house as he opened the door to them.

  “How is he, Doctor Bennett?” asked Sherry Carfax in a low, tense voice. “Can I see him?”

  Bennett made no immediate reply. Closing the door behind them, and followed by Sherry Carfax, Miss Frayle and Baron Xavier, with Doctor Morelle darkly watchful in the background, he led the way into his consulting-room.

  “Sir Hugh is in a nursing-home round the corner,” he said to the girl quietly. “I think you might ask the nurse on duty if you could see him. But of course you won’t be able to speak to him.”

  “I’ll take you round there if you like,” the Baron put in quickly, and Sherry Carfax gave him a grateful look. She turned to Bennett.

  “How did all this happen?”

  “That’s something I’m afraid I can’t explain.” The other threw an oblique glance at Doctor Morelle. “The whole business is mysterious, to say the least. Matter of fact, I was wondering if I should have ’phoned the police. Had you not answered my ’phone call, Doctor Morelle, I intended doing so.”

  Doctor Morelle inclined his head slightly and Miss Frayle gave him a long look. Composed and impassive, he regarded Doctor Bennett from behind the veil of smoke from his inevitable cigarette. The other was speaking to the girl again.

  “He’s had a bad time, Miss Carfax, and at present is still unconscious——”

  Sherry Carfax uttered a little moan and Miss Frayle moved towards her sympathetically. “How did it happen?” the girl cried. “How—why should this have happened to him?”

  Doctor Bennett’s expression was kindly. “All I can tell you,” he said gently, “is that my housekeeper found him at about half past ten this evening, lying in the basement area.”

  “What length of time had he been there?” Doctor Morelle interposed.

  “That I can’t say. I dined out this evening and then went on to see a patient. I returned about ten, noticed nothing unusual and was working in my consulting-room when the housekeeper came in and told me the news. Between us we got him up here. He was unconscious, of course. I ’phoned the nursing-home and they took care of him right away.”

  “You say the nature of his injury is compatible with that inflicted by a revolver-bullet?” It was Doctor Morelle again who put the question.

  The other nodded. “Sir Hugh’s leg was lacerated and he was badly bruised, no doubt through falling down the basement steps, but the head injury appeared to me to be a bullet-wound.”

  “I see . . .”

  Miss Frayle noticed that Sherry Carfax was looking paler and she made a movement to attract Doctor Morelle’s attention. He interpreted her glance and observed to Bennett:

  “Perhaps Miss Carfax might go along to the nursing-home now?”

  Doctor Bennett nodded, and at once Baron Xavier moved to the girl’s side. At the door she turned.

  “Are—are you coming, Doctor Morelle?”

  He shook his head. “It is unnecessary at the moment. Sir Hugh is in most capable hands. I may, perhaps, visit him tomorrow.” He turned to Bennett. “I would like a brief word with you.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll wait for Miss Carfax,” the Baron said, “and see her safely home.” And he took her arm. They went out, Bennett following them, into the hall.

  Eyebrows raised quizzically, Doctor Morelle suddenly swung
round on Miss Frayle.

  “Well, Miss Frayle . . .?” he fired at her.

  She jumped like a startled deer, her spectacles sliding down her nose. At that moment her thoughts and sympathies were with Sherry Carfax, and the Doctor’s unexpected query cut into her sentimental ruminations with the keenness of a knife.

  “Oh . . .!” she exclaimed involuntarily. “Well—what, Doctor Morelle?” she said hesitantly, adjusting her spectacles and gazing up at him. He sighed.

  “And is that all you have to offer?” he asked. “Merely the faint echo of my own question? Come, come! Is it possible you have reached no conclusions in this remarkable affair—no theory to advance? After all, you were, one might say, first on the scene, both insofar as Sir Hugh Albany is concerned and Baron Xavier’s secretary.”

  “I—I suppose I ought really to have some ideas,” she agreed nervously. “And—and yet,” she concluded lamely, “I can’t think of anything.”

  Doctor Morelle’s finely chiselled nose rose higher as he observed: “Perhaps after all that may prove fortunate for all concerned, my dear Miss Frayle!” He turned to Bennet, who had just come back to the consulting-room and was gazing first at Doctor Morelle then at Miss Frayle. “Your patient might have lain unconscious and undiscovered some considerable time?”

  The other nodded slowly. “If he fell into the area after dusk, he might certainly have stayed there all night.”

  “You obtained his telephone number from papers on him, no doubt?”

  “Yes. His address was in his notebook.”

  Doctor Morelle nodded, and there was a little pause while he surveyed the tip of his cigarette in silence. Then: “That would appear to be about all we can do tonight,” and moved towards the door. Miss Frayle followed him.

  “I shall be in touch with the nursing-home during the night, of course,” Bennet told him as they reached the front door, “and if there are any developments, I’ll let you know.”

  “Thank you, Doctor Bennett,” Miss Frayle smiled at him. “I do hope Sir Hugh will be all right. Poor Miss Carfax—I don’t know what she’ll do if he . . .” She left the possibility unsaid and her voice trailed into silence. The other murmured something sympathetically and then said to Doctor Morelle: