by Q. Patrick
Meanwhile I noticed that one of the dogs, intent on some purpose of its own, had moved away and was disappearing into the woods. We followed him with our eyes, and for a moment nobody spoke. Soon he came trotting back. In his mouth was a furry body which, at first glance, I took to be a large rabbit or a ground hog. Wagging his tail proudly, the hound laid his burden at his master’s feet. As he did so; I caught a glimpse of Baines’ face. It was drawn and haggard like the face of a man in mortal agony.
Bracegirdle’s broad back obscured my vision and I could not see at first what it was that the dog had brought. A low whistle of excitement made me step forward.
Lying on the brown grass at our feet lay the dead body of a small monkey—the marmoset which had belonged to Roberta Tailford-Jones. I could see at once that it had been dead for some hours and it had been ripped up the belly so that its viscera glistened in the sunlight. The scavengers of the woods had been at it already. It looked, as it lay there, like the mockery of a child’s body. I understood at once the expression I had just seen on Baines’ face.
“Good God!” It was Franklin Alstone who spoke first. “This is something devilish!”
Then everyone started talking at once, and I can’t remember half of what was said. Eventually, I know, the body was carefully wrapped up, and we went back to the Baines’ cottage.
As we passed through the garden gate, Bracegirdle beckoned me aside.
“Of course Baines is upset just now,” he whispered, “and I don’t want to cause any more trouble in the family, but this—er—monkey business,” he paused to smile at his own unconscious pleasantry—“this puts what you might call quite a different slant on things, Dr. Swanson. I’d like to have a word with that eldest Baines boy, the one who’s not quite right in the head. Can you tell me anything about him?”
I nodded.
“They say Mark Baines is a natural around here, but I’d call him more of a naturalist. He works as a kind of parttime gardener and has a real gift for flowers. He’s made our little wilderness blossom like the rose.”
Bracegirdle lowered his voice still more.
“We—ell, he was brought up not so long ago for hurting two little girls on the Lampson road. Their mother lodged a complaint against him. He said that they’d caught a song-bird in a trap and all he wanted was to get it away from them and set it loose.”
“Just like Mark,” I commented.
“He was let off with a warning that time, but—when a fellow’s not right in his head and things like this are going on …
I laughed.
“Mark is as soft-hearted as a girl. He could no more hurt an animal—here, look for yourself.”
I led Bracegirdle to the disused stable which was Mark’s living quarters. The ground floor was lined with handmade cages in each of which there was some living creature. A young fox, stinking to high heaven; a weasel with its leg carefully bandaged; a white owl and an enormous black snake. There were several other animals in this extraordinary menagerie. Mark’s sympathies were catholic.
“Don’t tell old man Alstone about this,” I continued, “but Mark’s place is a regular happy hunting ground for destructive vermin. He goes and gets them out of traps, looks after them until they are well and lets them loose again.”
Bracegirdle sniffed.
“Well, if he can live in this stink, he must be queer in the head.”
But if the downstairs part of the stable smelt bad, the loft where Mark lived and slept was a veritable paradise of lovely odors. These came from the plants and flowers which he kept there and tended with all the passionate devotion of his warped nature. Begonias, chrysanthemums, hyacinths, flowers in season and out of season, tropical and indigenous, brightened the dusty atmosphere of the loft until it blossomed like a gorgeous Chinese tapestry or the green-house of a millionaire. As a doctor I had often protested to Mark against sleeping in an atmosphere so deprived of oxygen—but he seemed to thrive on it.
As we climbed the ladder and proceeded through the trapdoor, I saw, to my surprise, that Mark was at home. Quickly I stepped backward to speak to Bracegirdle.
“Let me do the talking,” I whispered. “We’ll get further that way if you don’t mind. For some unknown reason Mark likes and trusts Dr. Conti and me. He doesn’t take to most people around here and he might be difficult with you.”
Bracegirdle nodded, and we pushed our way inside. Mark was bending over some fine amber chrysanthemums and did not look up as we entered.
“This gentleman’s interested in flowers,” I explained, and after a suspicious glance at Bracegirdle, Mark started to show his treasures, pronouncing their long names with uncanny accuracy. Bracegirdle was tactful and showed himself to be no mean horticulturist.
Mark’s face, as he bent over his favorite blooms, was a study for a sculptor. His long, dark hair and large, vacant eyes made me think irresistibly of a wild, exotic plant which had been metamorphosed by some magic into a country lad of eighteen. At first glance, he looked normal enough. It was only those weird, luminous eyes and the flat shape of the back of his head which showed him to be—different.
After we had botanized for a while, I broached the subject of his sister’s disappearance.
“Well, Mark, this is a bad business about Polly.”
He sat down on the edge of the dilapidated mattress which was his bed and stared from one to the other of us without speaking. I noticed, as I had often done before, that a sort of film had come over his eyes. He looked like a person who lives in a world other than our own—as one who has crossed the barrier which separates the known from the unknown.
“It isn’t no use to go looking for Polly,” he remarked slowly. “She’s gone and her kitty’s gone too. The kitty’s dead and that I know and if the kitty’s dead, Polly’s dead too and it’s no more use you chasing around after her. No.”
He was looking down as he spoke and playing with the thick hairs on his muscular arms. It was extraordinary, I thought idly, that any youth could resemble at once a flower and a gorilla.
“No more use,” he repeated dully.
Bracegirdle was staring at me, obviously awaiting his cue.
“What makes you say that, Mark?” I interposed hurriedly.
“It’s like this,” he shook his head as if in pity of my ignorance. “That kitty of our Polly’s was very wild. She wouldn’t come to no one but me, but as soon as she heard my voice, she’d come runnin’ up. I used to save her the milk from my supper.”
“Yes, but—”
“Well, I was out all last night calling after her—and calling. And there wasn’t a neck of the woods around here as I didn’t go in—but she didn’t come. So that kitty’s dead and gone, and, if she’s dead and gone, well, Polly’s dead and gone, too.”
With the serene philosophy of the mentally deficient he seemed amused that we should continue to question the inevitable—that we should probe with impious fingers into the mysteries which he calmly accepted. There was no more to be said.
As we crossed the garden toward the cottage, I saw the tall, erect figure of Seymour Alstone dismounting from his horse. He was hatless and his magnificent mane of dark hair, flecked only here and there with white, seemed like a reproach to his son’s sparsely covered head. He greeted me with a curt nod and turned to the Sheriff’s deputy.
“In charge of this investigation, Bracegirdle?” His voice rang out like a pistol shot.
“Yes, Mr. Alstone.”
“Well, you don’t seem to be making much progress. My men must get back to work tomorrow. Can’t spare ’em any longer.”
Bracegirdle assured him that their help was no longer necessary and went on to relate the incidents of the afternoon. Seymour Alstone listened intently, his large head thrust forward, his ferrety eyes boring holes through Bracegirdle, as he occasionally fired some pertinent question. It was no wonder, I thought, that the Goschen kids called him the Big Bad Wolf. One expected a large red tongue to loll out any minute. He seemed ravenou
s for details.
When Bracegirdle described the finding of the dead marmoset, Seymour turned to his son, and, instinctively, so it seemed to me, a note of contempt came into his voice.
“Did this animal belong to anyone you know, Franklin?”
“Why—er—yes, I think so.” Franklin Alstone was tugging nervously at his high-necked collar, and I remember having the distinct impression that he looked even more nervous and furtive than he usually did when addressed directly by his father. “It belonged to Mrs. Tailford-Jones, I think, at least I …”
“Hm! Nice sort of a pet!” The old man made a disdainful motion with his head.
A flush came into Franklin’s sallow cheeks. Though bordering on middle-age, it seemed as if he would never get over the unreasonable awe in which he had always held his father. Only once—according to popular rumor—had he opposed the old man’s wishes and that was when he had eloped with Gerald’s mother from whom he had now long been divorced.
Seymour had by this time started to heckle Bracegirdle. I made off, feeling rather embarrassed. Baines was waiting for me when I went to get my car. His hand shook as he took a cigarette from my proferred case. The events of the past two days had aged him considerably.
“Dr. Swanson,” he said, “I’d like to speak to you.”
“Surely.”
“There’s things connected with this business which aren’t what they ought to be.” The injured eyes of all the oppressed lower classes in the world were looking at me from his. “This monkey’s not the first animal to go. Last week old Mrs. Marvin lost her tabby cat. And there’s Brewer’s sheep found slit up in a ditch. Things aren’t right round here, Doctor. But you know how it is. Even if I was to have my suspicions, I couldn’t say nothing—not even to the police.”
Slightly bewildered, I nodded.
“Well, if I did find anything, I was wondering whether I could get in touch with you in private.”
“Sure, call me at the hospital any time. I’ll keep it under my hat. Rhodes 21, extension 59. And—” I paused and looked at him as sympathetically as I knew how—“I’m terribly sorry, Baines. I’ll do anything I can to help.”
I had not driven more than a quarter of a mile toward home when I met the Tailford-Jones’ car. Roberta beckoned me to stop and asked for news. Despite the indiscretions of the night before she looked perfectly stunning in her Sunday clothes. Edgar looked suitably stunned. As indeed any man, with little but a war pension to live on, might have been if he had to pay the bill for all that finery. Roberta’s elaborate wardrobe was another little mystery in the valley, and one that had often intrigued Millie Goschen and all the other female inhabitants of Grindle.
I described to them the finding of the monkey’s dead body.
At first Roberta started to cry. Then she fumed and stormed. Then she began using words which are commonly represented by asterisks. Her tear-stained face was distorted with fury. The make-up ran all over the lot. She would, I’m sure, have torn her improbable hair if her hat had not been such an expensive one.
“Edgar, drive on. Find that man Bracegirdle. Find him wherever he is.”
The little colonel started the engine meekly. Then he turned to me and spoke for the first time.
“You’re quite sure that the marmoset is dead?” His pinprick mouth had formed itself into a tiny “oh.”
“Dead as—”
But he was not listening. A violent attack of sneezing had apparently dulled his senses. He was holding a handkerchief in front of his face and making strange, inarticulate noises such as I had not heard since the end of the hay-fever season.
“Hurry up, Edgar.”
Edgar hurried up, but before he drove on, I had caught a glimpse of two malicious little devils dancing in his eyes.
He had—probably for the first time in the course of his whole married life—been roaring with laughter.
Chapter III
It was quite a relief after the. disquieting events of the week-end to get back to the comparative peace of my laboratory in Rhodes. Here the continuous struggle of life against death made the disappearance of one little girl seem relatively unimportant. After all, I was not a detective. My friendship with Bracegirdle and the kindly feeling I had for the Baines family (especially Mark) were the only links that really bound me to the case. My job was research work in medicine—not in crime—and there were other things to occupy my mind besides vanished children and dead monkeys. Of course, I did not then know that the incidents of the past few days were merely warning symptoms before the pandemic of horror that was so soon to terrorize the inhabitants of Grindle valley.
Bracegirdle turned up several times during the week, asked me a lot of questions and reported very little progress. There had been no further clue to Polly’s disappearance and no evidence which elucidated the death of Mrs. Tailford-Jones’ marmoset. Nor could anyone offer a particularly good alibi for Friday night or Saturday evening—the times when the two disappearances had occurred. Bracegirdle, it seemed, was relying more and more on me for help, though it was very little that I had to offer. The problem, in his mind, had already developed into a case for the doctor or alienist rather than the police.
I remember that I was very busy at the time on a paper for the Hematological Society, and I did not altogether welcome these intrusions. Still less did I welcome an interruption of another kind which occurred toward the end of the week. I was in the middle of a demonstration to my students when I was sent for by the Dean of the Medical School.
Dr. Warlock was a pompous old ass from whom I wanted nothing except his signature on my salary check at the end of each month.
“Sit down, Dr. Swanson—if you please.”
I sat on the edge of my chair, and for a second or two we looked at each other with well-balanced animosity.
“You and Dr. Conti live together out in Grindle, I believe?”
“Yes, Dr. Warlock.”
“You are both very young to hold such responsible positions in the college.”
I informed him politely that I was thirty-two and Toni thirty-five—no spring chickens, I might have added, to anyone except an old fogey like him.
“Well, well, you are still at an age when you might perhaps be addicted to—er, shall we say skylarking?” He was making a heavy attempt to sound indulgent and paternal. “You and Dr. Conti,” he continued, “are both engaged in animal work, I believe?”
I nodded.
“And you have the usual difficulty in getting all the material you want?—”
“Dr. Warlock,” I interrupted, “have there been complaints about me? I take all the routine precautions with my laboratory animals. I devocalize the dogs. I use anesthesia to avoid unnecessary pain. I—”
“Oh, there is no question of your efficiency—or ability, Dr. Swanson. I was just wondering whether, perhaps, you had tried to enlarge our somewhat limited supply of animals from—outside sources.”
I saw now what he was driving at. Roberta Tailford-Jones had actually lodged her crazy complaint. She was a woman without sense or intelligence, but she had political influence at Rhodes. Dean Warlock was a friend of her father.
“It’s both preposterous and insulting,” I said angrily.
“Come, Dr. Swanson, I am not accusing you. I only want your co-operation.” He took two or three letters from his desk. “I have received complaints this week from the Anti-Vivisection Society, the S. P. C. A. and certain—private individuals. It appears that various household pets have been missing in your neighborhood. There is a hint of an outrage of a more serious nature. They threaten investigation. I am asking your help to avoid a scandal.”
“It’s all nonsense, Dr. Warlock. There’s a silly woman in Grindle who lost her pet monkey, which, incidentally, has been found, dead in a ditch! A child disappears under mysterious circumstances, but it is fantastic to imagine that either Dr. Conti or I would do anything so foolish as to—why, it’s laughable.”
The Dean looked at me sadly
.
“You are very young, Dr. Swanson, and you do not realize how careful one has to be where experimental animals are concerned. Ours is a great country, Dr. Swanson, but it is inclined to be a sentimental one. And the sentimentalists can cause a lot of trouble. A story like this in the newspapers—even a famous university such as Rhodes could never live it down.”
I knew he was speaking nothing but the truth. There were a great many Robertas in the world.
“You don’t think that, perhaps, some of the students—? Young Alstone lives in the neighborhood.” The Dean lowered his voice discreetly, as most people did at the name of Alstone.
“No, sir. Gerald Alstone is a shy, retiring fellow. He doesn’t even like to go out hunting with his grandfather. He hasn’t the spunk to hurt a fly.”
“And there’s that other lad, Peter Foote. I understand he stays with the Alstones quite a lot. He used to be rather headstrong and excitable at one time, though now, they tell me, he’s quieted down considerably.”
“Foote’s as clean-cut and normal a boy as ever lived. A very able student, too.”
Dean Warlock nodded. “That’s just what I would have thought,” he said slowly.
“And,” I continued, “in the very unlikely event that either of these two boys wanted to conduct private experiments—they are both very well-off. They could purchase animals for themselves.”
The Dean tapped his paper knife on the desk.
“Well, I’m sorry to have troubled you, Dr. Swanson.”
I returned to the laboratory where a few of my students were still waiting, and finished the demonstration which dealt, if I remember correctly, with normal reticulocyte response to liver extract. I was just clearing up a few additional points when the telephone rang. I recall that Gerald Alstone went to answer it and said it was for me.
Baines was on the wire. His voice sounded almost faint with earnestness. He wanted to know if he could see me just as soon as I got back home. There was something—something which he had to talk over with me at once. I told him I was dining out that evening but would be going for a ride early the next morning.