Mr Splitfoot (Dr Basil Willing)

by Helen McCloy

  “Oh? Then it’ll have to be a thermos jug and you’ll need a candle.”

  Swayne took a silver tray down from a high shelf, set it with napkin and spoon, cup and saucer, added cigarettes, matches, ash tray. He found a thermos jug on another shelf. There were candles in a drawer. “Anything else?”

  “A book.” Basil turned to Crowe. “What kind of book is most likely to keep you awake? Detective story?”

  “Oh, no. I read those things to put me to sleep.”

  “What then?”

  “Something controversial. One of those books that assumes the first steps from animal to human were intellectual and human rather than emotional and animal. I happen to believe that society invented man, not that man invented society.”

  “What about the granddaddy of them all, Freud’s Totem and Taboo? It starts out with society already existing in the form of something called The Horde, whose origin is never explained. The transition from animal to human is attributed to ideas that are purely human—guilt, remorse and the concept of sexual taboos. That ought to keep anybody awake.”

  “Okay, I’ll try it. You an anti-Freudian?”

  “No.” Swayne was leading the way back through the dining room, carrying the tray. “I just don’t let myself forget that he was a Victorian whose first paper was published around 1895. His ideas, like Darwin’s, need revising if they’re to be kept up to date.”

  “What about the bell?” asked Crowe.

  “Oh, yes.” Swayne set down the tray and went back into the dining room. He returned in a moment with a bell of bright, hand-engraved brass dangling from a cord of twisted threads, red and white. He rang it experimentally. For so small a bell the sound was surprisingly deep, mellow and musical.

  “Got it in Benares,” he said. “It’s not loud, but it’s penetrating and quite loud enough. We’ll hear it if you leave the door open.”

  “And if there’s anything to hear,” added Alcott.

  “There probably won’t be,” Swayne was quick to agree. “A crowd of hard-headed skeptics with plenty of electric light will discourage most of these so-called manifestations whether they are illusion or fraud.”

  “But there won’t be plenty of electric light,” said Crowe quietly. “Remember?”

  “Oh . . .” Swayne was at a loss for a moment. “But that’s just in the one room. We’ll leave electric light on in both halls, upstairs and down. And we’ll have plenty of candles. How about this?”

  “This” was a large, three-branched candlestick of curiously wrought iron standing on the great slab of rough-hewn stone that formed the chimney shelf. The candleholders were arranged in descending steps.

  “Isn’t all this pretty childish?” said Alcott suddenly. “I vote we all go to bed sensibly and forget the whole thing.”

  “I can’t now,” said Crowe.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know . . . Momentum, Fate, something. I’ve got to see it through now I’ve started it, even if all the rest of you go to bed . . . sensibly, as you put it.”

  “In that case the rest of us can hardly leave you in the lurch,” said Swayne. “I’m like you. I’m too worked up to stop now. I must go on.”

  “But what is there to be worked up about?” Alcott’s voice had never sounded more indolent. “Don’t any of you have any idea how absurd this whole thing is going to seem by the light of day tomorrow morning?”

  No one answered him.

  “Well, if you won’t give up, promise me this: that all four of us agree we’ll never tell anyone else we were so silly.”

  “I’ll agree to that,” said Swayne. “And now let’s get started. It’s nearly half past twelve.”

  They mounted the stairs. Swayne took the key out of his pocket. The lock was rusty. It took a few moments’ fiddling before the door swung open with a creak of its stiff, unoiled hinges.

  The first thing that struck Basil about the room was that it was so small. To enter it, a man had to bend his neck as he passed under the lintel, and even a short man could touch the ceiling with his fingertips once he was in the room. Low ceilings always oppressed Basil. They suggested lairs and dens and fear, primitive humanity, cowering in dark, straitened places, hiding from great predators long ago.

  The window revealed the thickness of the old stone walls in this part of the house. They were like short tunnels and there were only two of them, small casements with leaded panes. There wouldn’t be much light here even by day.

  The wide floorboards dipped toward one side of the room. Old foundations settled unevenly under the stress of freezing winters. Or was it so old that it was built before spirit levels were used? Walking on that sloping floor gave one a slight sensation of giddiness, like walking on the deck of a ship rolling in a stormy sea.

  A gray bloom of lint furred everything. Dust had seeped through the cracks of locked doors and latched windows, settling evenly and smoothly for seventy years, mute witness to neglect.

  “We should have brought a broom or a vacuum.” Swayne’s voice sank, a little abashed.

  “Oh, let the dust be.” Alcott spoke sardonically. “Let’s see if this ghost can leave footprints.”

  Aside from the dust there was nothing that might not have been in any room in any fairly old house. A spoolbed, a Hitchcock rocking chair, a mahogany sewing table, a hooked rug, and, on the couch, a patchwork quilt worked in the log-cabin pattern. The very ordinariness of the room dispelled the vague fears they had all been ashamed to put into words.

  “What a piece of Victoriana!” Alcott was looking at a round table, draped in olive green velvet, with a ball fringe that nearly touched the floor. It supported an oil lamp, Benares brass again, but much older than the bell. This had not been polished for generations. The lamp shade was white translucent china, molded in low relief, and hand-painted on the underside so that the colors would shine through dimly when it was lighted. There were four panels of hunting scenes, men and horses, foxes and hounds, men and deer, dogs and bears, all against backgrounds of evergreens and snow.

  Swayne exclaimed suddenly. “We forgot Tobermory! I’ll get him.”

  The others stood waiting a little awkwardly. The only light was coming from the hall. Crowe took some matches out of his pocket and lit the three candles in the wrought-iron candelabra. Their light pushed the darkness back a little way but the corners of the room were still shadowy.

  “A pity you can’t use that oil lamp,” said Basil.

  “Probably no wick after all these years,” returned Crowe.

  “And no kerosene in the house,” added Alcott.

  Swayne came back with the bird cage. Tobermory was wide awake, his head cocked to one side, his beady black eye moving restlessly. Swayne pushed the tray aside to make room for the bird cage on the table.

  “It’s rather cold in here,” said Crowe.

  “Yes.” Swayne bent over a register grille in the floor. “This one is supposed to let heat through from the floor below, but it seems stuck. It won’t open all the way.”

  “We could build you a fire.” Basil was looking at the small stone fireplace in one corner.

  “Oh, I’ll be warm enough if you build up the fire downstairs,” said Crowe. “This chimney is the same as the living-room chimney. Some of the heat is sure to come up. I suppose this rocking chair is the most comfortable seat. I’ll move it nearer to the fireplace.”

  “You’ll need a better light for reading.” Swayne pushed the table with the candles on it nearer to the rocking chair. “And this bell should be hanging where you can reach it easily.” He glanced at the wall, took down a small picture and hung the bell by its cord on the picture hook so that it dangled near Crowe’s elbow.

  “Okay?”

  “Okay.” Crowe sat down and leaned back, relaxing in the embrace of the rocking chair.

  “Hey! Don’t go to sleep on us!”

  “More coffee? Or Totem and Taboo?”

  “Totem and Taboo, I think.” Crowe glanced at his wrist watc
h. “Almost one o’clock. Only a few more hours to cockcrow. Just about time to read T. and T.” He opened the book that lay on his knee.

  Basil, nearest the door, was the first to move toward it. At the threshold he paused to look back.

  Alcott stood in the middle of the room smiling at Crowe. “Good luck!” He turned to follow Basil.

  Swayne dropped a hand on Crowe’s shoulder. “If you ring that bell, we’ll be up in no time!”

  Crowe didn’t look up. He muttered something Basil was too far away to hear.

  Down in the living room again, Basil studied Swayne’s face. “Now you’re worried.”

  “Silly, isn’t it? But somehow leaving him there alone . . . Perhaps we shouldn’t have let him do it.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s lived with this odd story for a long time. He was brought up with it. It’s part of his family history. I wish now that we’d stayed in the room with him. Or at least one of us.”

  “We can hardly change the thing now,” said Basil.

  “I know. He’d feel insulted. But I wish we hadn’t done it this way and I wish we hadn’t drawn lots. The victim should have been a volunteer.”

  Alcott, who had preceded them, was standing with his back to a roaring fire. He caught Swayne’s last words.

  “The victim is never a volunteer. In this life we’re all conscripted sooner or later.”

  “I still don’t like this. I wish I were up there instead of David.”

  “He’ll survive. He’ll laugh with the rest of us about all this in the morning.”

  “He didn’t seem greatly worried when we left him,” said Basil.

  But Swayne shook his head. “He was putting it on. Bravado. I know him better than you do.”

  Basil tried to remember Crowe’s tones, postures, gestures, but so tricky is memory that the immediate past is sometimes harder to recall than the remote past. Already the images of the last few hours had blurred and faded beyond the point where he could summon them to consciousness at will. Once again he was reminded that the unconscious forces that govern accessible memory are the most arbitrary of editors and the absolute masters of our lives.

  “Well, how are we going to keep awake?” demanded Alcott. “Cards?”

  “Good idea.” Swayne went into the kitchen and came back with the pack of cards they had left there. “Gin? Poker? Blackjack?”

  “Poker ought to keep us awake.”

  They didn’t bother with a card table. They pulled up three chairs to the coffee table in front of the fire.

  “We need more light.” Alcott moved the angel chimes to the middle of the table and lighted their four candles.

  After the first round it was his turn to shuffle. Abruptly his hands were still. “Am I crazy? Or does that thing keep changing direction every now and then? I’m watching the angel on top. I swear he started clockwise, but now he’s going widdershins like a witch casting a spell.”

  Basil smiled. “I’ve been all through this. We have one of those at home. The angels don’t really change direction when they revolve, but if you watch the one on top, it looks as if they did. It’s a peculiarly vivid optical delusion. Even now when I know they don’t change direction, it still looks to me as if they did. It’s like looking at a mirage. You tell yourself it isn’t there, but there it is.”

  “Who knows what’s there and what isn’t?” said Swayne.

  Alcott’s eyes were still fixed on the top angel as if he were being hypnotized by the revolving motion. “There he goes again! I could swear he just changed direction.”

  “Let that be a lesson to you,” retorted Swayne. “Showing how easily we can all be fooled by appearances. I wonder if David has gone to sleep. It’s half an hour now since we left him up there and there hasn’t been a sound.”

  Alcott was startled. “Good Lord! I’d forgotten him for a few moments.”

  Swayne rose. “It’s getting cold. I’d better put another log on.”

  Only a few charred embers were left of the fire that had been blazing so merrily half an hour ago, but there was still a glow of red under the film of gray ash. Swayne chose the thickest section of tree trunk in the wood basket. It slipped out of his grasp before he could place it properly on the dying embers and fell, raising a fountain of red sparks.

  Alcott and Basil rose to stamp out those that reached the hearth rug. Swayne knelt with the bellows to coax the smoke and smolder into flame again. He must have chosen a well-seasoned log. With a muted roar a broad fan of yellow flame displaced the sluggish smoke and lighted up that whole end of the room.

  Swayne rose, brushing his fingertips together. “You know, Brad, I really don’t believe—”

  The mellow note of a bell cut him off in mid-sentence. His eyeballs rolled toward the ceiling.

  Alcott looked at Basil. “I don’t believe it.”

  Basil had already reached the foot of the stairs, when the bell rang again, twice.

  “But . . .” Alcott’s voice faltered. “He was to ring twice if something spoke to him . . .”

  Basil was on the stairs, Swayne close behind, Alcott following. As they reached the second landing, the bell rang three times.

  At the top of the stairs a wedge of candlelight from the open doorway of the bedroom cut into the shadows of the upper hall. They paused in the doorway, one behind another, first Basil, then Swayne, then Alcott.

  The room seemed as ordinary as it had before when they left it. Crowe still sat relaxed in the embrace of the rocking chair, his eyes cast down on the open book that lay upon his knee. There was no sign of another presence. The only marks in the dust on the floor were those from the doorway to the center of the room and the rocking chair that they themselves had made half an hour ago.

  Alcott was the first to speak. “I suppose you think this is funny? Seeing us all pelt up here to your rescue when it’s nothing but a false alarm? Well, I don’t. I’ve had enough. I’m going to bed now.”

  “Brad’s right,” said Swayne. “Let’s just call the whole thing off.”

  “Did you hear what I said?” Alcott crossed the room to the rocking chair and put his hand on Crowe’s shoulder.

  “Wait.” Basil followed swiftly. Crowe did not move or look up. Basil had to take the chin in one hand and lift it before he could look into the eyes.

  He released the chin and turned to the others.

  “It’s too late to call it off. He’s dead.”

  Chapter Eight

  DAWN WAS NOT rosy-fingered that morning. Under heavy cloud all objects were bathed in a thin, equal light without spark, depth or shadow. It caught a full moon still high in the sky like an awkward guest who has outstayed his welcome. The whole scene was a painting by a primitive who could not lay his colors on canvas cunningly enough to invite reality.

  Lucinda turned her eyes from the open window to the chaise longue. Folly was sleeping. The pillows behind her head were covered with the sheerest embroidered lawn over mauve-pink taffeta. Only her head and shoulders were visible above the hand-quilted coverlet of lilac satin. Her nightgown was frothy white, the neck threaded with mauve ribbon.

  This nest of romantic color and Valentine lace softened the masculinity in her hard, handsome face. With eyes closed and lips parted in deep unconsciousness, she was at last disarmed if not innocent. Anyone else might have been touched by beauty so vulnerable, but her beauty only quickened Lucinda’s hostility. It would have been easier to hate her if she had been old and ugly. Lucinda wanted to hate her.

  Cautiously Lucinda laid back her bedcovers. Sudden movements made bed springs creak, so she moved with almost glacier-patience, sitting up and swinging her legs around until the soles of her bare feet met the cold floor silently. She waited. No sign from Folly.

  Barefoot, Lucinda stepped softly to the door and opened it as slowly as she had disengaged herself from the bed. A moment later she was in the upper hall, closing the door behind her without a sound. Still Folly slept, but there were voices coming up th
e stairwell.

  “Since the two men, Alcott and Swayne, were downstairs when Crowe rang the bell upstairs, they cannot possibly have killed him.”

  Lucinda’s hand clenched the knob on the newel post at the head of the stairs. Killed him? Crowe? Who was this stranger who had just spoken in such an unfamiliar voice?

  “Martha, the cook, sleeps over the garage, away from the house.” That voice was Dr. Willing’s. “I think you can safely eliminate her. We know that no one came to the house from outside because there were no marks in the snow which had just finished falling. That leaves four women and a girl who were upstairs on the same floor with Crowe when he died: Crowe’s own wife, Serena; Alcott’s wife, Ginevra; Swayne’s wife, Eleanor Folsom Swayne who’s known as Folly. And, of course, Swayne’s daughter, Lucinda, isn’t it?”

  How odd to hear your own name spoken so coldly and yet so casually and familiarly by a man you have never met.

  “Yes. She’s only fifteen. She was in a highly emotional state last night and we put her to bed with a sedative. We didn’t wake her afterward.”

  “Four women altogether. No, five. You forgot your own wife, Dr. Willing.”

  “A Freudian error, Captain Marriott. Even my unconscious mind knows that she is not involved.”

  Captain Marriott? State Police from the barracks at Leeds?

  “Technically all these ladies had a physical opportunity to kill Crowe.”

  “Yes,” answered Basil. “But so far as I can see now, not one of them had a motive.”

  There was a creaking sound as if someone heavy had shifted position in a light chair.

  “Are you telling me that the men couldn’t have killed Crowe and the women wouldn’t?”

  Basil countered with another question. “Have you eliminated all possibility of natural death?”

  “I can’t until I get the autopsy report, but I already have a feeling that there is more to it than that.”

  “Why? Consider the facts as we know them. My wife and I arrived here only a few hours ago and we had never met any of these people before. The two other men were downstairs with me when Crowe died. The four women and the young girl who went upstairs are the sort who would murder only under extreme stress. Only one of them showed any sign of stress at all last night, the girl, Lucinda, when she—”