“Mere accident won’t do. He can’t go out and stumble off a cliff, hoping it will be read as accident. They might think that; but it is too chancy, and nothing must be left to chance. His death must be murder, cold-blooded murder, proved beyond any shadow of a doubt.”
Again Dr Fell paused. Alan improved the occasion to utter a derisive laugh which was not very convincing.
“In that case, sir,” Alan said, “I turn your own guns on you.”
“So? How?”
“You asked last night why any person intending to commit a murder for the insurance money should commit a murder which looked exactly like suicide. Well, for the same reason, why should Angus (of all people) plan a suicide which looked exactly like suicide?”
“He didn’t,” answered Dr Fell.
“Pardon?”
Dr Fell leaned forward to tap Alan, who occupied the front seat, very decisively on the shoulder. The doctor’s manner was compounded of eagerness and absentmindedness.
“That’s the whole point. He didn’t. You see, you haven’t yet realized what was in that dog carrier. You haven’t yet realized what Angus deliberately put there.
“And I say to you” – Dr Fell lifted his hand solemnly – “I say to you that but for one little unforeseeable accident, a misfortune so unlikely that the mathematical chances were a million to one against it, there would never have been the least doubt that Angus was murdered! I say to you that Alec Forbes would be in jail at this moment, and that the insurance companies would have been compelled to pay up.”
They were approaching Loch Awe, a gem of beauty in a deep, mountainous valley. But none of them looked at it.
“Are you saying,” breathed Kathryn, “that Angus was going to kill himself, and deliberately frame Alec Forbes for the job?”
“I am. Do you consider it unlikely?”
After a silence Dr Fell went on.
“In the light of this theory, consider our evidence.
“Here is Forbes, a man with a genuine, bitter grudge. Ideal for the purposes of a scapegoat.
“Forbes calls – for which we may read, ‘is summoned’ – to see Angus that night. He goes upstairs to the tower room. There is a row, which Angus can arrange to make audible all over the place. Now, was Forbes at this time carrying a ‘suitcase’?
“The women, we observe, don’t know. They didn’t see him until he was ejected. Who is the only witness to the suitcase? Angus himself. He carefully calls their attention to the fact that Forbes was supposed to have one, and says pointedly that Forbes must have left it behind.
“You follow that? The picture Angus intended to present was that Forbes had distracted his attention and shoved the suitcase under the bed, where Angus never noticed it, but where the thing inside it could later do its deadly work.”
Alan reflected.
“It’s a curious thing,” Alan said, “that the day before yesterday I myself suggested just that explanation, with Forbes as the murderer. But nobody would listen to it.”
“Yet I repeat,” asserted Dr Fell, “that except for a totally unpredictable accident, Forbes would have been nailed as the murderer straightaway.”
Kathryn put her hands to her temples.
“You mean,” she cried, “that Elspat looked under the bed before the door was locked, and saw there was no box there?”
But to their surprise Dr Fell shook his head.
“No, no, no, no! That was another point, of course. But it wasn’t serious. Angus probably never even thought her glance under the bed noticed anything one way or the other. No, no, no! I refer to the contents of the box.”
Alan closed his eyes.
“I suppose,” he said in a restrained voice, “it would be asking too much if we were to ask you just to tell us what was in the box?”
Dr Fell grew still more solemn, even dogged.
“In a very short time we are (I hope) going to see Alec Forbes. I am going to put the question to him. In the meantime, I ask you to think about it; think about the facts we know; think about the trade magazines in Angus’s room; think about his activities of the past year; and see if you can’t reach the solution for yourselves.
“For the moment let us return to the great scheme. Alec Forbes, of course, had carried no suitcase or anything else. The box (already prepared by Angus himself) was downstairs in one of the lower rooms. Angus got rid of the women at ten o’clock, slipped downstairs, procured the box, and put it under the bed, after which he relocked and rebolted his door. This, I submit, is the only possible explanation of how that box got into a hermetically sealed room.
“Finally, Angus wrote up his diary. He put in those significant words that he had told Forbes not to come back, and Forbes said it wouldn’t be necessary. Other significant words too: so many more nails in Forbes’s coffin. Then Angus undressed, turned out the light, climbed into bed, and with real grim fortitude prepared for what had to come.
“Now follow what happens next day. Angus has left his diary in plain sight, for the police to find. Elspat finds it herself, and appropriates it.
“She thinks Alec Forbes killed Angus. On reading through the bulk of the diary, she realizes – as Angus meant everybody to realize – exactly what killed Angus. She has got Alec Forbes, the murderer. She will hang the sinful higher than Haman. She sits down and writes to the Daily Floodlight.
“Only after the letter is posted does she suddenly see the flaw. If Forbes did that, he must have pushed the box under the bed before he was kicked out. But Forbes can’t have done that! For she herself looked under the bed, and saw no box; and, most horrifying of all, she has already told the police so.”
Dr Fell made a gesture.
“This woman has lived with Angus Campbell for forty years. She knows him inside out. She sees through him with that almost morbid clarity our womenfolk exhibit in dealing with our vagaries and our stupidities. It doesn’t take her long to understand where the hanky-panky lies. It wasn’t Alec Forbes; it was Angus himself who did this. And so –
“Do I have to explain further? Think over her behavior. Think of her sudden change of mind about the box. Think of her searching for excuses to fly into a tantrum and throw out of the house the newspaperman she has summoned herself. Think, above all, of her position. If she speaks out with the truth, she loses every penny. If she denounces Alec Forbes, on the other hand, she condemns her soul to hellfire and eternal burning. Think of that, my children; and don’t be too hard on Elspat Campbell when her temper seems to wear thin.”
The figure of one whom Kathryn had called a silly old woman was undergoing, in their minds, a curious transformation.
Thinking back to eyes and words and gestures, thinking of the core under that black taffeta, Alan experienced a revulsion of feeling as well as a revulsion of ideas.
“And so –?” he prompted.
“Well! She won’t make the decision,” replied Dr Fell. “She returns the diary to the tower room, and lets us decide what we like.”
The car had climbed to higher, bleaker regions. Uplands of waste, spiked with ugly posts against possible invasion by air, showed brown against the granite ribs of the mountains. The day was clouding over, and a damp breeze blew in their faces.
“May I submit,” Dr Fell added after a pause, “that this is the only explanation which fits all the facts?”
“Then if we’re not looking for a murderer –”
“Oh, my dear sir!” expostulated Dr Fell. “We are looking for a murderer!”
They whirled round on him.
“Ask yourselves other questions,” said Dr Fell. “Who impersonated the ghostly Highlander, and why? Who sought the death of Colin Campbell, and why? For remember: except for lucky chance, Colin would be dead at this minute.”
He brooded, chewing the stem of a pipe that had gone out, and making a gesture as though he were pursuing something which just eluded him.
“Pictures,” he added, “sometimes give extraordinary ideas.”
Then he
seemed to realize for the first time that he was talking in front of an outsider. He caught, in the driving mirror, the eye of the gnarled little chauffeur who for miles had not spoken or moved. Dr Fell rumbled and snorted, brushing fallen ash off his cape. He woke up out of a mazy dream, and blinked round.
“H’mf. Hah. Yes. So. I say, when do we get to Glencoe?”
The driver spoke out of the side of his mouth.
“This is Glencoe,” he answered.
All of them woke up.
And here, Alan thought, were the wild mountains as he had always imagined them. The only adjective which occurred in connection with the place was God-forsaken: not as an idle word, but as a literal fact.
The glen of Coe was immensely long and immensely wide, whereas Alan had always pictured it as a cramped, narrow place. Through it the black road ran arrow-straight. On either side rose the lines of mountain-ridges, granite-gray and dull purple, looking as smooth as stone. No edge of kindliness touched them: it was as though nature had dried up, and even sullenness had long petrified to hostility.
Burns twisting down the mountain-side were so far off that you could not even be sure if the water moved, and only were sure when you saw it gleam. Utter silence emphasized the bleakness and desolation of the glen. Sometimes you saw a tiny whitewashed cottage, which appeared empty.
Dr Fell pointed to one of them.
“We are looking,” he said, “for a cottage on the left-hand side of the road, down a slope among some fir trees, just past the Falls of Coe. You don’t happen to know it?”
The driver was silent for a time, and then said he thought he knew it.
“Not far off now,” he added. “Be at the Falls in a minute or two.”
The road rose, and, after its interminable straightness, curved round the slaty shoulder of a hill. The hollow, tumbling roar of a waterfall shook the damp air as they turned into a narrow road, shut in on the right by a cliff.
Driving them some distance down this road, the chauffeur stopped the car, sat back, and pointed without a word.
They climbed out on the breezy road, under a darkening sky. The tumult of the waterfall still splashed in their ears. Dr Fell was assisted down a slope on which they all slithered. He was assisted, with more effort, across a stream; and in the bed of the stream, the stones were polished black, as though they had met the very heart of the soil.
The cottage, of dirty whitewashed stone with a thatched roof, stood beyond. It was tiny, appearing to consist of only one room. The door stood closed. No smoke went up from the chimney. Far beyond it the mountains rose up light purple and curiously pink.
Nothing moved – except a mongrel dog.
The dog saw them, and began to run round in circles. It darted to the cottage, and scratched with its paws on the closed door. The scratching sound rose thinly, above the distant mutter of the falls. It set a seal on the heart, of loneliness and depression in the evil loneliness of Glencoe.
The dog sat back on its haunches, and began to howl.
“All right, old boy!” said Dr Fell.
That reassuring voice seemed to have some effect on the animal. It scratched frantically at the door again, after which it ran to Dr Fell and capered round him, leaping up to scrape at his cloak. What frightened Alan was the fright in the eyes of the dog.
Dr Fell knocked at the door, without response. He tried the latch, but something held the door on the inside. There was no window in the front of the cottage.
“Mr Forbes!” he called thunderously. “Mr Forbes!”
Their footsteps scraped amidst little flinty stones. The shape of the cottage was roughly square. Muttering to himself, Dr Fell lumbered round to the side of the house, and Alan followed him.
Here they found a smallish window. A rusty metal grating, like a mesh of heavy wire, had been nailed up over the window on the inside. Beyond this its grimy windowpane, set on hinges to swing open and shut like a door, stood partly open.
Cupping their hands round their eyes, they pressed against the grating and tried to peer inside. A frowsty smell, compounded of stale air, stale whisky, paraffin oil, and sardines out of a tin, crept out of the room. Gradually, as their eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, outlines emerged.
The table, with its greasy mess of dishes, had been pushed to one side. In the center of the ceiling was set a stout iron hook, presumably for a lamp. Alan saw what was hanging from that hook now, and swaying gently each time the dog pawed at the door.
He dropped his hands. He turned away from the window, putting one hand against the wall to steady himself. He walked round the side of the cottage to the front, where Kathryn was standing.
“What is it?” He heard her voice distantly, though it was almost a scream. “What’s wrong?”
“You’d better come away from here,” he said.
“What is it?”
Dr Fell, much less ruddy of face, followed Alan round to the front door.
The doctor breathed heavily and wheezily for a moment before he spoke.
“That’s rather a flimsy door,” he said, pointing with his stick. “You could kick it in. And I think you better had.”
On the inside was a small, new, tight bolt. Alan tore the staple loose from the wood with three vicious kicks into which he put his whole muscle and the whole state of his mind.
Though he was not anxious to go inside, the face of the dead man was now turned away from them, and it was not so bad as the first look through the window. The smell of food and whisky and paraffin grew overpowering.
The dead man wore a long, grimy dressing gown. The rope, which had formed the plaited cord of his dressing gown, had been shaped at one end into a running noose, and the other tied tightly round the hook in the ceiling. His heels swung some two feet off the floor as he hung there. An empty keg, evidently of whisky, had rolled away from under him.
Whining frenziedly, the mongrel dog shot past them, whirled round the dead man, and set him swinging again in frantic attempts to spring up.
Dr Fell inspected the broken bolt. He glanced across at the grated window. His voice sounded heavy in the evil-smelling room.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Another suicide.”
15
“I suppose,” Alan muttered, “it is Alec Forbes?”
Dr Fell pointed with his stick to the camp-bed pushed against one wall. On it an open suitcase full of soiled linen bore the painted initials “A.G.F.” Then he walked round to the front of the hanging figure where he could examine the face. Alan did not follow him.
“And the description fits, too. A week’s growth of beard on his face. And, in all probability, ten years’ growth of depression in his heart.”
Dr Fell went to the door, barring it against Kathryn, who stood white-faced under the overcast sky a few feet away.
“There must be a telephone somewhere. If I remember my map, there’s a village with a hotel a mile or two beyond here. Get through to Inspector Donaldson at Dunoon police station, and tell him Mr Forbes has hanged himself. Can you do that?”
Kathryn gave a quick, unsteady nod.
“He did kill himself, did he?” she asked in a voice barely above a whisper. “It isn’t – anything else?”
Dr Fell did not reply to this. Kathryn, after another quick nod, turned and made her way back.
The hut was some dozen feet square, thick-walled, with a primitive fireplace and a stone floor. It was no crofter’s cottage, but had evidently been used by Forbes as a sort of retreat. Its furniture consisted of the camp bed, the table, two kitchen chairs, a washstand with bowl and pitcher, and a stand of mildewed books.
The mongrel had now ceased its frantic whimpering, for which Alan felt grateful. The dog lay down close to the silent figure, where he could raise adoring eyes to that altered face; and, from time to time, he shivered.
“I ask what Kathryn asked,” said Alan. “Is this suicide, or not?”
Dr Fell walked forward and touched Forbes’ arm. The dog stiffened. A menacing grow
l began in its throat and quivered through its whole body.
“Easy, boy!” said Dr Fell. “Easy!”
He stood back. He took out his watch and studied it. Grunting and muttering, he lumbered over to the table, on whose edge stood a hurricane lantern with a hook and chain by which it could be slung from the roof. With the tips of his fingers Dr Fell picked up the lantern and shook it. A tin of oil stood beside it.
“Empty,” he said. “Burned out, but obviously used.” He pointed to the body. “Rigor is not complete. This undoubtedly happened during the early hours of the morning: two or three o’clock, perhaps. The hour of suicides. And look there.”
He was now pointing to the plaited dressing-gown cord around the dead man’s neck.
“It’s a curious thing,” he went on, scowling. “The genuine suicide invariably takes the most elaborate pains to guard himself against the least discomfort. If he hangs himself, for instance, he will never use a wire or chain: something that is likely to cut or chafe his neck. If he uses a rope, he will often pad it against chafing. Look there! Alec Forbes has used a soft rope, and padded that with handkerchiefs. The authentic touch of suicide, or –”
“Or what?”
“Real genius in murder,” said Dr Fell.
He bent down to inspect the empty whisky-keg. He went across to the one window. Thrusting one finger through the mesh of the grating, he shook it and found it solidly nailed up on the inside. Back he went, with fussed and fussy gestures, to the bolt of the door, which he examined carefully without touching it.
Then he peered round the room, stamping his foot on the floor. His voice had taken on a hollow sound like wind along an Underground tunnel.
“Hang it all!” he said. “This is suicide. It’s got to be suicide. The keg is just the right height for him to have stepped off, and just the right distance away. Nobody could have got in or out through that nailed window or that solidly bolted door.”
He regarded Alan with some anxiety.
“You see, for my sins I know something about hocusing doors or windows. I have been – ahem – haunted and pursued by such matters.”
The Case of the Constant Suicides Page 13