Dancing with Death

by Ruth Wade

  “So that is the sort of man you were,” he said softly. “A cold, cold man, with a cold ghost.”

  But having pronounced the word he found that he could not stay for another moment. He turned swiftly, but cautiously. He was by no means reassured at finding the room empty. He gave the late President s chair a wide berth — did it move a little as he fluttered past? — and reached for the door-knob with a sweating hand. Outside in the hall courage swept back to him again so that he was able to hold the door open for a moment and say:

  “Sorry, old boy. I didn’t know you wanted to be alone.” And then, meditatively, as he shut the door with a little click: “Should I lose you living and vex you dead?”

  He was relieved to find the hall empty. He did not wish to shatter Nellie’s nerves by telling her to whom he had been talking. Still he would have felt he owed it to himself to do so, if she had been a bewildered spectator of his emergence from the study. He let himself out of the front door and stopped in astonishment.

  Usually at this hour the quadrangle was deserted. It was not yet two o’clock, and most of the students and staff should have been at luncheon, except for the few odd souls who liked to lecture at one. To-day, however, when he turned around from closing the door, Daly found himself looking into hundreds of pairs of eyes, all sparkling with fiendish anticipation. Though he could see some other people as well, most of them were students, close-packed and single-minded as a crowd waiting for the arrival of Mr. de Valera. In that first moment it occurred to Daly that this was why Bradley’s ghost had urged him to come out. It had wanted him to restore order. All Presidents, he reflected delightedly, even dead ones, hate to see students congregate in large crowds.

  From his little elevation on the steps of the President’s Lodging, Daly was able to see across the crowd to the far side of the quadrangle. His eyesight was not good, so that it was a moment or two before he recognized the figure that was moving agitatedly up and down behind the unconcerned backs of the farthermost students. It was Fox, and he was plainly engaged in trying to disperse the crowd by individual persuasion. They took no more notice of him than if he had been a hawker at a hurling match. With Daly’s arrival they had pressed forward a little more. Now all conversation ceased. Clearly he was expected to make a speech, newly come as he was from the scene of the drama.

  His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Then he spoke in a casual tone, but loud enough to carry to the farthest limits of his audience.

  “There can scarcely be one of us who has not at some time come upon the scene of a street accident. As we walk towards it we become aware of a group of curiously uninhibited persons, standing on their toes to see over each other’s heads, necks outstretched, mouths open, all other purposes forgotten in the one delight of observing at first hand the blood and misfortune of a fellow-man. Someone — I forget for the moment who it was — has written a short story in which he propounds a thesis that these rubbernecks are always the same people, who hurry from one accident to another with religious devotion. They never offer help. They just stare. Usually they are silent, but there was one celebrated occasion when they sang to keep themselves amused during a long vigil. That was while they waited for the hanging of one Mrs. Manning, poor soul, who had so far forgotten herself as to murder someone — was it her husband? Perhaps you would know.” A slightly harder note crept into his voice as he went on: “Perhaps you would like to sing? You may have to wait a long time. It will be dull for you standing there — ”

  But by this time the crowd, red-faced and shuffling angrily, had begun to disperse. Those on the edges were fortunate in being able to pretend that they had suddenly met friends with whom they longed to talk, or that they had stopped to admire the fine view of the park from the quadrangle. The middle of the crowd and especially those who had been to the front, concentrated on getting outside the range of Daly’s discomfiting eye with all possible speed. He did not move until most of them were gone, but stood there unsmiling and inscrutable. At last he stepped down on to the path and began to walk slowly towards the main door.

  Before he could reach it he saw Professor O’Leary come from the direction of the library and hurry towards him.

  “You brute!” she said, as soon as she was near enough. “You have shattered the ego of every student in this College.”

  “Yes,” said Daly complacently. “My tongue has not lost its cunning. And you’ll find that the egos will recover like the daisies, cut down yet up again as blithe as ever.”

  “You have a heart of stone,” said she admiringly.

  “I am seventy-four years old,” said Daly, “and I can say exactly what I please. You have no idea of the joy of that. But I must confess that that performance just now cost me a little effort. Walk about with me a little, Mary, if you’re not going somewhere else.”

  “Of course,” she said quickly.

  Though she knew him long enough not to be deceived by his pathetic tone, still she always found herself responding to it.

  “Tell me, how are people taking the news?” he asked eagerly, as they walked slowly around the quadrangle.

  “Just as you saw. There is an air of rather callous excitement. All work is suspended, of course, except by Donovan. He is giving a lecture on assassinations, the students tell me. He began with the origin of the word and its ancient practice. They thought he was drunk because he said ‘hashshashin’. Then he discoursed on confidence-trick assassinations, as in Nelson’s method with General Caracciolo, and the more subtle Borgia style as opposed to the common behind-the-ditch variety. He has not even got to Sarajevo yet, and he says he is going to finish with some remarks on the psychological effects of assassinations. That will be late to-night, as far as I can judge. Most of his class has slipped out and he has not even noticed.”

  “But who is listening to all this?” asked Daly.

  “Four Christian Brothers, in the front row,” said Mary. “They are writing down every word and they are far too polite to go away. It seems to be an inspired lecture.”

  She glanced sideways at Daly, who said calmly:

  “Inspired with his delight in Bradley’s death, I suppose. That is the general feeling, without a doubt. I’m afraid that Mike is going to have a difficult time.”

  “You think that one of us did in the President?” she said eagerly. “Certainly some of us were behaving very oddly. There’s Milligan, who pinched a sugar-castor out of the restaurant just now and had to be pursued by Denny to get it back. Do stay with that policeman,” she said earnestly. “You’ll be able to explain things to him.”

  Just then Fox came bustling towards them. As he came near Daly could see that he was almost in a state of hysteria. He clutched an arm of each of them and said earnestly, peering into Daly’s face:

  “I can never thank you enough for getting that mob to break up. I was in despair. I mean, they just would not go for me. I always used to be able for them, but to-day — I suppose it was the shock of all this — poor Bradley — ”

  “Come and have lunch with me, Foxy,” said Miss O’Leary. “There’s nothing like food for settling the nerves.”

  “Do you know, I’m quite hungry,” said Fox in surprise. “Perhaps that is what I need.”

  She led him away towards the restaurant. As he started back to the President’s Lodging, Daly reflected on the pleasure of being rescued twice in one day by such an enchanting champion.

  “God be with the youth of me!” he said to himself with a mournful shake of the head. He knew now that it was selfish jealousy that had impelled him to warn Mike against the dangers of keeping a tame tiger.

  He found Mike and Mullen in Bradley’s hall. The doctor was pulling on his gloves, breathing loudly like a groom, as doctors often do when they are faced with sudden death.

  “Mullen says that he was poisoned all right,” said Mike. “Go on, Mullen.”

  “Nitro-benzene, I think,” said Mullen.

  Daly made a little exclamation, which he smothered quickly into
a question:

  “What is that?”

  “Nitric acid on benzene,” said Mullen. “It smells like almonds. It is used to perfume hair-oil and in flavourings. I once saw a fellow who had died of drinking his hair oil. Rather like drinking one’s bath-water, don’t you think? That is how I recognized what had happened to our friend upstairs. There is the characteristic blue colour of the skin — ”

  “Don’t tell us!” said Daly sharply. “I don’t want to know.”

  “Thought you were interested,” said Mullen coolly. “Well, I’ll be moving on, Kenny. There’s a butcher in Fairview has just cloven his assistant to the breeches belt. You’ll see about the post-mortem?”

  He shook hands weakly with Daly and let himself out, whistling the “Marseillaise” metallically through his teeth. Daly looked after him with dislike, but he made no comment. Mike said:

  “Come into the study. MacCarthy and Murphy are there. We need your help.”

  They found the two policemen standing poised for departure just inside the door.

  “I thought you were never coming, sir,” said the sergeant. “Me stomach thinks me throat is cut.”

  “There will be a meal for us in the restaurant,” said Daly, “but, please, if you must tell me about the doctor’s report, do it now, not over a meal.”

  “There is nothing to tell yet,” said Mike, with a calculating eye on Daly. “We must have a post-mortem, as you heard Mullen say. If it is nitro-benzene, as he suggests, he told me one or two interesting things about it. First, that it is a slow-acting poison, and that Bradley could have taken it at any time from six o’clock last evening onwards. Second, that death can be caused by the victim’s inhaling the vapour of nitro-benzene. Third, that the taking of alcohol with nitro-benzene accelerates its action. Fourth, that nitro-benzene is heavy and would lie at the bottom of the glass, allowing the poisoner to drink the top to prove his good faith.”

  “Stop!” shouted Daly, who had been slowly coming to the boil during this discourse. “You are a deadly bore, Mike. And if I were you I’d arrest the doctor. He seems to know far too much about it.” He walked unhappily across the room. “Now I’ll tell you something about nitro-benzene, and it will put all that one-two-three-four stuff out of your head. Our professor of chemistry, Milligan, always makes a little joke about nitro-benzene to his students, about this time of the year.”

  “That was going to be my fifth point,” said Mike amiably. “Mullen is a graduate of this College and he says Milligan and his nitro-benzene were a byword. He says that Milligan used to recommend the use of nitro-benzene as a poison, because of the four advantages that I named.”

  “Look at that!” said the Sergeant. “Right under our noses all these years! He should be locked up, so he should.”

  “That way madness lies, Sergeant,” said Daly.

  “Still, we’ll have to ask Professor Milligan about it,” said Mike, “and I would like if you could come with me. He may be difficult — ”

  “He’ll be as pleased as Punch,” said Daly. “About the nitro-benzene, that is. But he may be uneasy in another way. You see, Milligan is a kleptomaniac. He has been like that for years.” The sergeant moaned and clutched his forehead. “His daughter looks after him, so that he never does any real damage. But you must be careful not to hurt his feelings. He’s very sensitive about it.”

  “So that’s the little failing you mentioned last night?” said Mike, who was retaining his calm with some difficulty.

  “Yes,” said Daly. “As you saw, there’s no great secret about it, really. But perhaps you can understand better now why Bradley did not want the police in about the place. For all his faults he had a feeling of responsibility towards his staff.”

  Mike cocked an eye at him.

  “You think that that was why?”

  Daly looked uncomfortable and then he said suddenly, nodding towards the desk:

  “Have you found the anonymous letters?”

  “No, but I have found documents which say that Mr. Leahy was going to present this college with fifty thousand dollars. You were here at this house last night when Leahy himself said there must be some good way of spending fifty thousand dollars.”

  “Now, if it had been the other way around,” Daly began with interest.

  “I’m thinking,” MacCarthy said ingenuously, “that myself and Murphy, here, will have our dinner in the kitchen with the staff, that way we’ll have a chance of picking up a bit of information, do you follow — ”

  “All right, all right,” said Mike. “I’m hungry, too.” The sergeant and his silent mate left with great alacrity. Mike conducted Daly out into the hall and locked the study door. Then he went along to the tiny room off the hall where the telephone was, to make arrangements for the post-mortem and the disposal of Bradley.

  Standing there waiting for him and trying not to hear the one-sided conversation through the glass-panelled door, Daly suddenly remembered Mrs. Bradley. Mike seemed not to take any interest in her. Daly wondered what she was thinking about, alone in her room with her aspirins, and with the dead body of her obnoxious husband next door. He feared that she might be mourning him from a sense of duty, for he knew that it was largely this sense that had always ruled her life. He glanced at Mike’s straight back, which he could see through the glass of the door, observing his long, efficient hand holding the telephone, and the upward lift of his chin that so clearly showed the determination and single-mindedness of his character. Like a small boy watching a schoolmaster, Daly judged Mike’s mood, and he was afraid to slip up the stairs, as he could so easily have done, and visit Mrs. Bradley in her room. Just then Mike turned suddenly and sent a penetrating glance through the glass, as if he knew the direction of Daly’s thoughts. It was clear that Mike had some doubt as to whether the old man was able to resist the temptation, for he kept a close watch, through narrowed eyelids, until he put down the telephone.

  “Now we can have something to eat,” he said blandly, as he came out into the hall. “Then we’ll come back and talk to Mrs. Bradley.”

  Chapter 8

  At the restaurant it seemed as if the entire crowd from the quadrangle had simultaneously felt the need of strength through food. Denny came scurrying over, sibilantly solicitous.

  “I’ll send you a tray in your rooms, Professor. Don’t go in there at all.”

  He hustled them away from the door. Already their presence had been observed by those who sat near it, and an air of uneasiness had begun to spread through the room.

  “It’s better this way,” said Daly, as he led Mike upstairs. “We are hardly justified in afflicting them all with indigestion.”

  The first thing that Daly saw, when he came into his study, was the folder containing the notes of his morning lecture. He seized it, like a mother recovering a lost child, and almost covered it with kisses.

  “I had forgotten all about it,” he said to Mike in an awed tone. “Of course I have the draft at home, but this is absolutely invaluable.”

  He hugged it to his bosom and looked at Mike over the top with large alarmed eyes. Mike was saved the necessity of replying by the appearance in the doorway of Jennings, whose painful anxiety to please had softened him so that his backbone seemed no longer able to hold him upright.

  “I brought up your notes, Professor. I hope you don’t mind. I thought you might like to keep them for a kind of souvenir, like — ”

  “Souvenir your granny!” thundered Daly. “These are a life’s work. These are my gift to posterity!”

  “Yes, sir,” said Jennings piteously. “And I’m bringing up lunch for yourself and Mr. Kenny, in a minute or two.”

  “Good, good,” said Daly with a hard, thoughtful eye on him. “And thanks for minding my notes, Jennings. I should hate to lose them.”

  When Jennings had gone out Daly said:

  “Do you know, that is the first time that Jennings has ever been civil to me. I deduce that he knows something. And I guess what.”

 
“What?” said Mike hopefully.

  “Time will tell,” said Daly. “I’m doing no prognosticating just now.”

  In spite of his protests against the idea, Daly talked about nitro-benzene throughout the meal that Jennings presently brought. Mike was amused at this. He knew that, as was usual with him, Daly had translated the crude reality of Bradley’s death into terms of imagination, almost of poetry. He no longer saw the physical aspects of it, the sordid violence and the triumph of the powers of darkness. All he saw was that someone, by poisoning Bradley, had cocked a snook at Daly’s mental powers. The prospect of the resultant duel filled him with such an exhilarating excitement that he almost loved both Bradley and his murderer for causing it.

  Mike had no objection whatever to discussing murder over his meals. He had long ago become accustomed to this, having eaten with thieves and murderers both before and after their arrest. He induced Daly to tell him Milligan’s joke, which was a complicated one about the general suitability of nitro-benzene as a poison. Even those students who failed to see the point always laughed as heartily as Milligan did himself, or as a junior barrister laughs at jokes from the bench.

  “Everyone in the College knows the name of nitro-benzene,” said Daly, “even those of us who have not the remotest idea of what it is. That was why I exclaimed when you mentioned it, as a Connemara man might if you mentioned the town in America to which all his aunts had emigrated. You will find no clue in that.”

  “Unless Milligan did it himself,” said Mike comfortably, lighting the slim blond cigar that Daly had given him.

  “Do kleptomaniacs commit murder?” asked Daly.

  Mike built up a crazy theory whereby Milligan would have been planning for forty years to murder Bradley, feigning kleptomania and making jokes about nitro-benzene throughout that time, in order to provide himself with protective colouring.

  “The snag is that he would have had to see Bradley and take a scunner against him while they were both schoolboys,” said Daly. “I should call that an unlikely prospect. Though I seem to remember that he taught Bradley.”