The Hollow Man

by John Dickson Carr

  'No. I leave these sordid details to you,' said Dr Fell, with dignity. 'Somebody said it was just round the corner, I remember. Humph. Ha.'

  'In Guilford Street, next to the Children's Hospital. In fact,' said Hadley, 'backed up against Cagliostro Street so closely that the back gardens must be in line ... Well, say five minutes to get the ambulance to Russell Square. That's ten - twenty. And what about the next five minutes, the time just before the second murder, and the equally important five or ten or fifteen minutes afterwards? Rosette Grimaud, alone, rode over in the ambulance with her father, and didn't return for some time. Mangan, alone, was downstairs doing some telephoning for me, and didn't come upstairs until Rosette returned. I don't seriously consider either of 'em, but take it all for the sake of argument. Drayman? Nobody saw Drayman all this time and for a long while afterwards. As to Mills and the Dumont woman - h'm. Well, yes; I'm afraid it does clear them. Mills was talking to us all the earlier part of the time, until at least ten - thirty anyhow, and Madame Dumont joined him very shortly; they both stayed with us for a while. That tears it.'

  Dr Fell chuckled. 'In fact,' he said, reflectively, 'we know exactly what we did before, no more and no less. The only people it clears are the ones we were sure were innocent, and who had to be telling the truth if we made any sanity of the story. Hadley, it's the cussedness of things in general which makes me raise my hat. By the way, did you get anything last night out of searching Drayman's room? And what about that blood?'

  'Oh, it's human blood, right enough, but there was nothing in Drayman's room that gave a clue to it - or to anything else. There were several of those pasteboard masks, yes. But they were all elaborate affairs with whiskers and goggle eyes: more the sort of thing that would appeal to a kid. Nothing, anyway, in the - the plain pink style.

  There was a lot of stuff for kids' amateur theatricals, some old sparklers and pinwheels and the like, and a toy theatre ...'

  'Penny plain and twopence coloured,' said Dr Fell with a wheeze of reminiscent pleasure. 'Gone for ever the glory of childhood. Wow! The grandeur of a toy theatre! In my innocent childhood days, Hadley, when I came trailing clouds of glory to the view (a thesis, by the way, which might have been open to considerable debate on the part of my parents); in my childhood days, I say, I owned a toy theatre with sixteen changes of scenery. Half of 'em, I am pleased to say, were gaol scenes. Why does the young imagination run so strongly to gaol scenes, I wonder? Why?'

  'What the hell's the matter with you?' demanded Hadley staring. 'Why the sentimentality?'

  'Because I have suddenly got an idea,' said Dr Fell, gently. 'And, oh, my sacred hat, what an idea!' He remained blinking at Hadley. 'What about Drayman? Are you going to arrest him?'

  'No. In the first place, I don't see how he could have done it, and I couldn't even get a warrant. In the second place - '

  'You don't believe he's guilty?'

  'H'm,' grunted Hadley, with an innate caution about doubting anybody's innocence. 'I don't say that, but I think he's likely to be less culpable than anybody else. Anyway, we've got to get a move on! Cagliostro Street first, then to interview several people. Finally - '

  They heard the door - bell ring, and a sleepy maid - servant tumbled down to answer it.

  'There's a gentleman downstairs, sir,' said Vida, poking her head into the room, 'who says he wants to see either you or the superintendent. A Mr Anthony Pettis, sir.'

  CHAPTER 12

  THE PICTURE

  DR FELL, rumbling and chuckling and spilling ashes from his pipe like the Spirit of the Volcano, surged up to greet the visitor with a cordiality which seemed to put Mr Anthony Pettis much more at his ease. Mr Pettis bowed slightly to each of them.

  'You must excuse me, gentlemen, for intruding so early,' he said. 'But I had to get it off my mind, and couldn't feel easy until I did. I understand you were - um - looking for me last night. And I had an unpleasant night of it, I can tell you.' He smiled.' My one criminal adventure was when I forgot to renew a dog licence, and my guilty conscience was all over me. Every time I went out with that confounded dog I thought every policeman in London was eyeing me in a sinister way. I began to slink. So in this case I thought I'd better hunt you out. They gave me this address at Scotland Yard.'

  Dr Fell was already stripping off his guest's overcoat, with a gesture that nearly upset Mr Pettis, and hurling him into a chair. Mr Pettis grinned. He was a small, neat, starched man with a shiny bald head and a startlingly booming voice. He had prominent eyes, looking more shrewd with a wrinkle of concentration between them, a humorous mouth and a square, cleft chin. It was a bony face - imaginative, ascetic, rather nervous. When he spoke he had a trick of sitting forward in his chair, clasping his hands, and frowning at the floor.

  'It's a bad business about Grimaud,' he said, and hesitated. 'Naturally I'll follow the formula of saying I wish to do everything I can to help. In this case it happens to be true.' He smiled again. 'Er - do you want me sitting with my face to the light, or what? Outside novels, this is my first experience with the police.'

  'Nonsense,' said Dr Fell, introducing everybody. 'I've been wanting to meet you for some time; we've written a few things on the same lines. What'll you drink? Whisky? Brandy and soda?'

  'It's rather early,' said Pettis doubtfully. 'Still, if you insist - thanks! I'm very familiar with your book on the supernatural in English fiction, doctor; you're a great deal more popular than I shall ever be. And it's sound.' He frowned. ' It's very sound. But I don't entirely agree with you (or Dr James) that a ghost in a story should always be malignant ..'

  'Of course it should always be malignant. The more, more malignant,' thundered Dr Fell, screwing his own face up into a tolerably hideous leer, 'then the better. I want no sighing of gentle airs round my couch. I want no sweet whispers o'er Eden. I want BLOOD!' He looked at Pettis in a way which seemed to give the latter an uncomfortable idea it was his blood. 'Harrumph. Ha. I will give you rules, sir. The ghost should be malignant. It should never speak. It should never be transparent but solid. It should never hold the stage for long, but appear in brief vivid flashes like the poking of a face round a corner. It should never appear in too much light. It should have an old, an academic or ecclesiastical background; a flavour of cloisters or Latin manuscripts. There is an unfortunate tendency nowadays to sneer at old libraries or ancient ruins, to say that the really horrible phantom would appear in a confectioner's shop or at a lemonade stand. This is what they call applying the "modern test". Very well, apply the test to real life. Now, people in real life honestly have been frightened out of their five wits in old ruins or churchyards. Nobody would deny that. But, until somebody in actual life really does scream out and faint at the sight of something at a lemonade stand (other, of course than that beverage itself), then there is nothing to be said for this theory except that it is rubbish.'

  'Some people would say,' observed Pettis, cocking one eyebrows, 'that the old ruins were rubbish. Don't you believe that good ghost stories can be written nowadays?'

  'Of course they can be written nowadays, and there are more brilliant people to write 'em - if they would. The point is, they are afraid of the thing called Melodrama. So, if they can't eliminate the melodrama, they try to hide it by writing in such an oblique, upside - down way that nobody under heaven can understand what they are talking about. Instead of saying flat out what the character saw or heard, they try to give Impressions. It's as though a butler, in announcing guests at a ball, were to throw open the drawing - room doors and cry: "Flicker of a top - hat, vacantly seen, or is it my complex fixed on the umbrella stand faintly gleaming?" Now, his employer might not find this satisfactory. He might want to know who in blazes was calling on him. Terror ceases to be terror if it has to be worked out like an algebra problem. It may be deplorable if a man is told a joke on Saturday night and suddenly bursts out laughing in church next morning. But it is much more deplorable if a man reads a terrifying ghost story on Saturday night, and two weeks
later suddenly snaps his fingers and realizes that he ought to have been scared. Sir, I say now - '

  For some time an irritated superintendent of the C.I.D. had been fuming and clearing his throat in the background. Now Hadley settled matters by slamming his fist down on the table.

  'Easy on, will you?' he demanded. 'We don't want to hear any lecture now. And it's Mr Pettis who wants to do the talking. So - ' When he saw Dr Fell's puffings subside into a grin, he went on, smoothly, ' As a matter of fact, it is a Saturday night I want to talk about; last night.'

  'And about a ghost?' Pettis inquired, whimsically. Dr Fell's outburst had put him entirely at his ease. 'The ghost who called on poor Grimaud?'

  'Yes ... First, just as a matter of form, I must ask you to give an account of your movements last night. Especially between, say, nine - thirty and ten - thirty.'

  Pettis put down his glass. His face had grown troubled again. ' Then you mean, Mr Hadley - after all, I am under suspicion?'

  'The ghost said he was you. Didn't you know that?'

  'Said he was - Good God, no!' cried Pettis, springing up like a bald - headed jack - in - the - box. 'Said he was me? I mean - er - said he was - hang the grammar! I want to know what you're talking about? What do you mean?' He sat down quietly and stared as Hadley explained. But lie fussed with his cuffs, fussed with his tie, and several times nearly interrupted.

  'Therefore if you'll disprove it by giving an account of your movements last night -' Hadley took out his notebook.

  'Nobody told me about this last night. I was at Grimaud's after he was shot, but nobody told me,' said Pettis, troubled. 'As for last night, I went to the theatre: to His Majesty's Theatre.'

  'You can establish that, of course.'

  Pettis frowned. 'I don't know. I sincerely hope so. I can - tell you about the play, although I don't suppose that's much good. Oh, yes; and I think I've still got my ticket stub somewhere, or my programme. But you'll want to know if I met anybody I knew. Eh? No, I'm afraid not - unless I could find somebody who remembered me. I went alone. You see, every one of the few friends I have runs in a set groove. We know exactly where he is at most times, especially Saturday evenings, and we don't try to change the orbit.' There was a wry twinkle in his eye. 'It's - it's a kind of respectable Bohemianism, not to say stodgy Bohemianism.'

  'That,' said Hadley, 'would interest the murderer. What are these orbits?'

  "Grimaud always works - excuse me; I can't get used to the idea that he's dead - always works until eleven. Afterwards you could disturb him as much as you liked; he's a night owl; but not before. Burnaby always plays poker at his club. Mangan, who's a sort of acolyte, is with Grimaud's daughter. He's with her most evenings, for that matter. I go the theatre or the films, but not always. I'm the exception.'

  'I see. And after the theatre last night? What time did you get out?'

  'Near enough to eleven or a little past. I was restless. I thought I might drop in on Grimaud and have a drink with him. And - well, you know what happened. Mills told me. I asked to see you, or whoever was in charge. After I had waited downstairs for a long time, without anybody paying any attention to me' - he spoke rather - snappishly - 'I went across to the nursing - home to see how Grimaud was getting on. I got there just as he died. Now, Mr Hadley, I know this is a terrible business, but I will swear to you - '

  'Why did you ask to see me?'

  'I was at the public - house when this man Fley uttered his threat, and I thought I might be of some help. Of course I supposed at the time it was Fley who had shot him; but this morning I see in the paper -'

  'Just a minute! Before we go on to that, I understand that whoever imitated you used all your tricks of address, and so on, correctly? Good! Then who in your circle (or out of it) would you suspect of being able to do that?'

  "Or wanting to do it,' the other said, sharply.

  He sat back, being careful about the knife - crease of his trousers. His nervousness was clearly giving way before the twistings of a dry, curious, insatiable brain; an abstract problem intrigued him. Putting his finger - tips together he stared out of the long windows.

  'Don't think I'm trying to evade your question, Mr Hadley,' he said, with an abrupt little cough. 'Frankly, I can't think of anybody. But this puzzle bothers me apart from the danger, in a way, to myself. If you think my ideas suffer from too much subtlety, or from too much plain damned nonsense, I'll put it up to Dr Fell. Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that I am the murderer.'

  He looked mockingly at Hadley, who had straightened up.

  'Hold on! I am not the murderer, but let's suppose it. I go to kill Grimaud in some outlandish disguise (which by the way, I would rather commit a murder than be seen wearing). Hum! I indulge in all the rest of the tomfoolery. Is it likely that, after all these things, I would blatantly sing out my real name to those young people?'

  He paused, tapping his fingers.

  'That's the first view, the short - sighted view. But the very shrewd investigator would answer: "Yes, a clever murderer might do just that. It would be the most effective way of bamboozling all the people who had jumped to the first conclusion. He changed his voice a very little, just enough so that people would remember it afterwards. He spoke as Pettis because he wanted people to think it wasn't Pettis." Had you thought of that?'

  'Oh, yes,' said Dr Fell, beaming broadly. 'It was the first thing I did think of.'

  Pettis nodded. 'Then you will have thought of the answer to that, which clears me either way. If I were to do a thing like that, it isn't my voice I should have altered slightly. If the hearers accepted it to begin with, they might not later have the doubts I wanted them to have. But,' he said, pointing, 'what I should have done was to make one slip in my speech. I should have said something unusual, something wrong and obviously not like myself, which later they would have remembered. And this the visitor didn't do. His imitation was too thorough, which seems to excuse me. Whether you take the forthright view or the subtle one, I ran plead not guilty either because I'm not a fool or because I am.'

  Hadley laughed. His amused gaze travelled from Pettis to Dr Fell, and he could keep his worried expression no longer.

  'You two are birds of a feather,' he said. 'I like these gyrations. But I'll tell you from practical experience, Mr Pettis, that a criminal who tried anything like that would find himself in the soup. The police wouldn't stop to consider whether he was a fool or whether he wasn't. The police would take the forthright view - and hang him.'

  'As you would hang me,' said Pettis, 'if you could find contributory evidence?'

  'Exactly.'

  'Well - er - that's frank, anyhow,' said Pettis, though he seemed acutely uneasy and startled at the reply. 'Er - shall I go on? You've rather taken the wind out of my sails.'

  'Go on certainly,' urged the superintendent, with an affable gesture. 'We can get ideas even from a clever man. What else have you to suggest?'

  Whether or not that was a deliberate sting, it had a result nobody expected. Pettis smiled, but his eyes had a fixed quality and his face seemed to become more bony.

  'Yes, I think you can,' he agreed. 'Even ideas you should have had yourselves. Let me take one instance. You - or somebody - got himself quoted at some length in all the papers this morning, about Grimaud's murder. You showed how the murderer was careful to ensure unbroken snow for his vanishing - trick, whatever it was. He could be sure that it would snow last night, lay all his plans accordingly, and gamble on waiting until the snow stopped for the working of his scheme. In any event, he could reasonably depend on there being some snow. Is that correct?'

  'I said something of the sort, yes. What of it?'

  'Then I think you should have remembered,' Pettis answered evenly, 'that the weather forecast said he could do nothing of the kind. Yesterday's weather forecast announced that there would be no snow at all.'

  'Oh, Bacchus!' boomed Dr Fell, and brought his fist down on the table after a pause in which he blinked at Pettis. 'Well
done! I never thought of that. Hadley, this changes things altogether! This - '

  Pettis relaxed. He took out a cigarette - case and opened it 'Of course there is an objection. I mean, you can make the obvious retort that the murderer knew it was bound to snow because the weather forecast said it wouldn't. But in that case you'd be the one who took subtlety to the edge of comedy. I can't follow it so far. Fact is, I think the weather forecast comes in for as many untrue jeers as the telephone service. It dropped a brick in this instance, yes - but that doesn't matter. Don't you believe me? Look up last night's papers and see.'

  Hadley swore, and then grinned. 'Sorry,' he said. 'I didn't mean to touch you on the raw, but I'm glad I did. Yes, it does seem to alter matters. Blast it, if a man intended to commit a crime that depended on mow, he'd certainly treat the forecast with some sort of consideration.' Hadley drummed on the table. 'Never mind; we'll come back to that. I seriously ask for ideas now.'