The Man Who Could Not Shudder (Dr. Gideon Fell series Book 12)

by John Dickson Carr

  “Of course. You make that plain enough in your manuscript, even if you do not appear to realize what you are writing. Perhaps you’ve forgotten that within five minutes of their having apparently met for the first time, Andy Hunter gravely handed Mrs. Logan a sherry and bitters without even inquiring what she wanted to drink?”

  Tess and I looked at each other.

  “You carefully record how he asked each other person what that person wanted to drink. It was just after your arrival at Longwood House in a body. But he handed out the sherry and bitters automatically, without a word. Both of them were a bit rattled, as we can understand.

  “Curiously enough, precisely the same thing happened the other way round. It was at tea on Saturday. I saw it happen. After asking each other person how many lumps of sugar we required, she put three lumps (three, observe) into his cup and passed it over without a query. She knew how many lumps he took. After all, they had met often enough in the restaurant at the Victoria and Albert Museum.”

  “But Clarke—” began Tess. She hesitated, shook her head as though to clear it, and was silent.

  “The first of these instances,” pursued Dr. Fell, “I heard from Sonia, the maid. (I mentioned it to Mrs. Logan in the pub at Southend, if you recall?) A very sharp girl, Sonia. With regard to the second, you are good enough to point out in your narrative that Saturday afternoon was the first time anybody had tasted a cup of tea in that house; so there was no opportunity for her to have learned his requirements in the matter of sugar.

  “However, those are merely outward instances. If you think back to the words, thoughts, deeds, and even atmospheres of those two, the love element (at least on his side) burns bright and strong. You recall that wildly out-of-character speech of his, when he accused you of not having regard for the ‘spiritual’ things? An echo of his overmastering love for Gwyneth Logan. Observe, too, that in the stress of excitement she once threw a glass at him: a liberty she took with nobody else. Observe also that, when he was hurt in the fall of the chandelier, it was Gwyneth Logan who went in to be with him at the nursing home.—But perhaps,” added Dr. Fell, “I had better tell you the story?”

  Tess spoke in a hollow voice.

  “I think,” she agreed, “perhaps you had.”

  It is difficult for Dr. Fell to look malevolent, but he managed it then.

  “Clarke was the evil genius, of course,” he said. “Clarke came to England with the deliberate intention of compassing Logan’s death. He knew all about the house with the hidden death trap, though Herbert Longwood had not originally intended it as a death trap at all. (As you can guess, the idea was merely to startle visitors when a revolver jumped and fired a blank cartridge from the wall: without a misplaced typewriter and typewriter table, nobody would ever have been in danger.) Clarke wanted to compass Logan’s death. But he would not, emphatically, kill Logan himself. No, no. He never took any chances.

  “At this time, Andy Hunter and Gwyneth Logan had already met—”

  “Just a moment,” I interposed. “We’re not questioning any of this; but how do you know it?”

  Dr. Fell rubbed the side of his nose.

  “From young Hunter himself,” he explained apologetically. “When he recovered his life and his reason after that smash with the chandelier, he was (you recall?) for many months a mentally sick and chastened man. It cured him, fortunately, of his infatuation for Gwyneth Logan. But at the time of the murder he was frantic.

  “Their affair had not been precisely platonic, as you’ve guessed; though she tried her best to make it ‘spiritual’ and put him into an even worse state. Didn’t you see it stamped on his forehead then? Didn’t you observe his behavior all the day after he learned she had (shall we say?) granted favors to her own husband on Friday night?”

  “Yes,” admitted Tess. “But I thought … Never mind. Go on.”

  “Now I don’t wish to say anything against the character of the attractive Gwyneth Logan,” pursued Dr. Fell. “I understand she is cutting quite a dash as a merry widow on the Riviera these days. But, if you’ve observed her with half an eye, you’ll have seen that she is a woman who has to dramatize herself or die. That little affair with Hunter was her safety valve for emotional acting. She entirely convinced him that Logan was a sadistic brute who led her a life no woman could endure. (By the way, Hunter twice incautiously let this slip to you later on.) Her poses before him were amazing. There was, he says, talk of murder. He swore he would deliver her from Logan. She never wanted anything of the sort. Logan was the sound sort of man who could provide for her. It was dreams again, exciting dreams. But, if she didn’t mean it—by thunder, Andy Hunter did!

  “And, at this stage of the game, enter Clarke.

  “The museum enthusiast goes once to the Victoria and Albert, he goes twice, he goes three times. He always sees the lovers, one of whom (Gwyneth) he already knows. He watches. He learns much of what firework vows are being made. Thus he gets an inspiration from heaven.

  “If Andy Hunter were to kill Logan … or if things were to be so maneuvered that Hunter got an opportunity to kill Logan without ever even suspecting Clarke had given him that opportunity …

  “Admirable!

  “For (a) Longwood House appears for sale on the market; (b) Hunter is an architect; (c) discreet questioning reveals that Hunter is a friend of one Robert Morrison, whose acquaintance Clarke already has.

  “Oh, yes. He let you send him to Andy Hunter. He even let you suggest Hunter as a guest for the house party, knowing that the suggestion was obvious and certain. A rare gentleman, Mr. Clarke. Always wangling, always maneuvering, always deftly shifting pieces so that he never has to undertake the responsibility about anything. As we know, he never takes any chances.

  “Now hear what happened:

  “At the beginning of the last week in March, after getting the keys of Longwood House and an order-to-view from the agent, Clarke called on Andy Hunter. Professionally, that is. He asked Hunter to go down into the country and inspect the place carefully. He added that he had heard there were curious relics and papers in the attic—handing over also a key, a key to a box, which he had NOT got from the house agent.

  “Hunter visited the house. As a matter of human curiosity, he opened this box stuffed with ancient papers. And in front of his eyes he found a neat little drawing: a plan showing the electromagnet trick in the study, with details of how it could be turned into a death trap with the proper placing of a typewriter table and a typewriter.”

  Tess intervened.

  “Wait!” she cried. “That old Longwood man—the one who caused all the trouble—he was supposed to be great at drawing plans. Do you mean he left that plan there?”

  Dr. Fell chuckled. But it was not his usual chuckle, and it died immediately.

  “Hardly. Clarke merely made use of his knowledge of that habit. It was Clarke’s plan, in printing so that it could not be identified. It was done on paper, with a pencil. It was dust-saturated. For Clarke, as you know, had added his own little twist of the typewriter-table murder.

  “The next few days were the crucial time. If Hunter came back to him, and said, ‘Good God, sir, look here! An electromagnet in the mantelpiece. A gadget to kill! What do you think of this?’ For, if Hunter had no idea of murder, he would say that. It’s sufficiently unusual an attribute to a house so that any ordinary honest architect would certainly comment on it. But Andy Hunter said nothing.

  “Clarke must have hugged himself. ‘You recommend the house as sound and a safe buy, Mr. Hunter?’ ‘Yes, sir, definitely.’ ‘Good! That is satisfactory. I trust you will join a little housewarming party when I do move in? Only a few—including my good friends, the Logans.’

  “And the blood went into that poor young devil’s head and eyes; and he says he had to hold to the back of a chair to steady himself.

  “If he had reported the electromagnet, then that would have been that. Clarke would simply not have bought the place, and tried some other plan. For,
as we know, he never takes any chances.

  “Parenthetically, I may remark that Andy Hunter never did know there was more than one electromagnet in the house. He never suspected until Saturday afternoon, when I asked him to get up on a chair with his hands raised under the chandelier, and a draught from the open door (nothing more) moved the chandelier. Then, he says, he realized all of a sudden what might have killed the butler. Immediately afterwards, the grandfather clock mysteriously started in the hall—Clarke did that little bit of business, just as Elliot said—and Andy Hunter could be thundering well certain there was something fishy beyond what he knew about. He got some pins and a stepladder, and climbed up in the middle of the night to see whether the iron was magnetized. He never found, or looked for, the switch controlling the magnet; and we still don’t know where it was. He simply gave the chandelier a brisk push; it clanked and rang, and started to swing with an ease that he couldn’t believe; he staggered; he lost his balance on a shaky stepladder as the thing surged back at him; he grabbed for support—

  “That’s all. Another near tragedy.

  “But I have told you the end of the story first. Let’s return.

  “During April, when the house was being redecorated for the housewarming, Clarke kept a close eye on the lovers at the Victoria and Albert. Once he deliberately walked into Mrs. Logan there just after she had left Hunter. Once again, apparently by chance, he met her there. He fell to meeting her in other places too, the object being outwardly a little mild flirtation and really to keep tabs on her emotional pulse.”

  “Is that why,” demanded Tess, “she admitted Clarke was the man she’d been meeting there?”

  “Yes. You understand, she thought that was safe. There really hadn’t been anything in those episodes. But, as she put it, wild horses wouldn’t have made her mention Hunter’s name. Because that affair was not so innocent; there was a little hotel, not far from the museum itself, where, if the register were to be examined—

  “Gwyneth Logan is a very modest young lady. Even with her husband dead, she was still modest.

  “While keeping an eye on the lovers, Clarke furnished the house. ‘I think, Mr. Hunter, I had better have a typewriter in the study. Yes, and a typewriter table. Now let me see. Where shall I put it? North wall or south wall?’ And that humiliated young scapegoat, burning with hatred against Bentley Logan, writhing in his soul because he is taking advantage of this good-natured employer, says: ‘South wall, sir. Over there. I could have them rig you up a light above it.’ Clarke considers. ‘Well, Mr. Hunter, if that is your advice!’ Covering himself again, you perceive. For, as we know, he never takes any chances.

  “And so we come to the ghost party, and the murder on Saturday. Your own memories will fill up the gaps.”

  “No, they won’t,” I said. “For the thousandth time, who was the man in the brown suit? Somebody was standing outside the window. Who was it?”

  “Julian Enderby,” answered Dr. Fell affably.

  “Julian?”

  “H’mf, yes. Oh, yes. Ho! You—er—haven’t seen much of him in recent months, have you?”

  Tess laughed. “We never see him. He married a most distinguished gal; and I never do get on with ’em somehow. He’s doing well, I hear.”

  Dr. Fell wheezed. The corners of his bandit’s mustache were pulled down, and his lower lip out-thrust.

  “He’d have done much less well,” growled the doctor viciously, “if he’d dared to tell the police that story he told you in the bedroom in the middle of the night. He tried it out on you; but at the last moment he couldn’t screw up his courage to tell it to the police. He couldn’t, even though Clarke promised him much fine legal business if he did tell it …”

  “NOT CLARKE AGAIN?”

  “What else did you expect? Do you follow the twists of that?

  “Julian Enderby, walking in a strange garden for the first time, heard a strange woman’s voice giving interesting speech through a partly open window. He was violently and sneakingly curious. He saw a wooden box, left there by a gardener with no sinister or ulterior purpose at all. He put the box near the window, climbed up, and looked …”

  “Then he did see the murder after all?”

  “He did. As we compelled him to admit, when he didn’t want to present himself as an eavesdropper before an inquest, and at first denied it.”

  “But afterwards? The second story?”

  “Clarke’s. Clarke’s mind is still at work. He conceives another scheme. Genially, and in strictest confidence, he speaks to Enderby that same evening. ‘Sir, you are in an unpleasant position; your professional friends won’t like it.’ ‘I know they won’t.’ Then why, between ourselves, admit that you looked in at all? Why not say you saw someone else there?’ ‘Mr. Clarke, you insult me. That would be a lie; and, anyway, it would make my position even worse.’ ‘Not at all, if you say you saw someone there, and that person doesn’t deny it … meaning me.’

  “That was the way it was put up to him. ‘Say you saw me, or someone like me.’ And much good business might come to the energetic Mr. Enderby from the wealthy Mr. Clarke?”

  Again I called for an interruption.

  “But why should even Clarke want Julian to say that?”

  Dr. Fell sighed gustily.

  “I fear, my lad, I very much fear that our friend Clarke took an instantaneous and violent dislike to both Inspector Elliot and your humble servant. In fine, he was laying a trap for us. He did lay a trap for us; and Elliot fell into it.

  “Clarke already had his alibi. (Don’t you recall the expression on his face when he came back from the pub and found Logan had been murdered, as he hoped?) He could blow our accusations sky-high whenever he liked.

  “He wanted us to accuse him. He wanted us to think he was the man at the window, and to believe that the switch for the gun magnet, if we discovered it, was under the window sill. Then, when we accused him, he could make absolute chuttering fools of us. He would show us up for dunderheads, and feed that vanity which made him decide to compass Logan’s death merely because the man infuriated him by doing him down in a business deal: he would do this, I say, by playing the ace of trumps in the form of his alibi.

  “Hence his proposition to Julian Enderby. Now, it is doubtful whether Enderby ever really intended to tell that whopper to the police. He is too cautious; and I believe he smelled a rat. When tried out the story on you, it seems clear from your description of his behavior that he was inclined to trust Clarke even less than you did. But Clarke hoped for the best.

  “And Clarke would do more. If we—Elliot and I—tumbled to the hocus-pocus with the electromagnet, Clarke would not be content with proving his own innocence. He would make more outstanding asses of us by solving the mystery himself. He would outline the case against Hunter; he would trace the flex of the magnet back to a window by which Hunter had been standing; he would, inevitably, send that young man to the gallows. And this, by thunder,” said Dr. Fell, snorting so savagely that sparks flew from his pipe, “I was determined to prevent.

  “I had already determined that Clarke was the scene-shifter and Hunter the actual criminal. I knew that a magnet had been used. (By the way, you now can understand why several weapons in that tier of pistols seemed to be ‘disarranged,’ ragged and pulled out of line, though there were no fingerprints on them. None of them had been changed in their positions, as the too-imaginative Sonia suggested and even you imagined. But they had been pulled about, because the magnet acted on them as well as on the .45 revolver; and their different positions were in ratio to their weight and their distance from the magnet.)

  “But how in blazes was I to circumvent Clarke?

  “The man was in an almost impregnable position. He had done nothing that could be proved against him. Once accused, he would retaliate by accusing Hunter. Even worse: I dared not tell Elliot the truth. Elliot is a scholar and a gentleman; but he is also a policeman. His duty would have been to arrest Hunter, and he would have done
it. Which would have been a pity, because in actual fact …”

  Here Dr. Fell coughed, hesitated, and did not pursue that line.

  “There seemed only one way out of the impasse. You saw how sick and defeated Clarke looked when his house went up in flames. As he said, it had done him. We couldn’t prove he had committed the murder, but he couldn’t prove who else had. Once I made sure the switch of the magnet was actually in the billiard-room, hidden under an invisibly hinged board where Hunter had only to tread on it, I realized it was the only way out of the impasse. That … harrumph, ha! … that was why I set fire to the house.”

  If the garden had tilted up in our faces at that moment, I could not have had a more reeling sensation in the head and stomach. Tess let out a kind of squeak.

  “You set fire—”

  “Sh-h!” urged Dr. Fell, starting guiltily and peering round as though there might be a policeman lurking in the laurels. “Do not, I beg of you, shout the fact. Arson is a serious offense, though I cannot (alas) feel that any destruction of Clarke’s goods and chattels is likely to weigh very heavily in my conscience.

  “I set a slow fuse, after ascertaining that there was nobody in the house, and then joined you in the sunken garden. Not being an actor of outstanding merit, I feared that my expressive dial might betray me; and I had some very queasy moments at the time of those explosions. But let me assure you it was the only way. You see, there was still another reason why I didn’t want Hunter arrested for the crime.”

  “Which was?”

  “That Hunter, in fact, was not the murderer.”

  Things were getting worse and worse.

  “But you said—”

  “No,” returned Dr. Fell firmly. “I said he wanted to kill Logan. I said he stole the pistol from Gwyneth’s room that morning … she had told him about it, of course, as a warning against what Logan might do … and hung it up on the wall. I said he set the trap and prepared to spring it. All that was quite true. But I did not say he committed the murder.”