The Sleeping Sphinx dgf-17

by John Dickson Carr

  "There, over the green lawns of the past, walked Margot Devereux. And how the outside world misunderstood!

  "Because she was robust, because she was jovial, because she liked games, they laughed and approved and applauded. 'Strapping,' they called her. 'Uninhibited,' was another word. And if at times something seemed odd? Well! Only over-hearty, which was not a bad thing. Not only did the outside world misunderstand, but they got the position the wrong way round.

  "Everyone here, I imagine, has heard the famous remark which Mammy Two made on a number of occasions. 'There's a funny streak in our family, y’know. One of my granddaughters is all right, but I've been worried about the other ever since she was a little child.' And, of course, that remark was applied to the wrong person.

  "Suspect Margot, the hearty and athletic? In England, good sirs? Damme! Fie upon you! So they never guessed, any more than her own sister guessed, that Margot Devereux was a hysteric with the potentialities of a dangerous hysteric.”

  "But Mammy Two knew. The family doctor knew. Obey and Cook: be sure they knew. And they waited (with God knows what fear in their hearts; I am not looking at Dr. Shepton now) while Margot grew up into a very beautiful woman. Even then stark tragedy might have been averted, if . . ."

  Holden sat up straight

  "If—what?" he demanded.

  "If Margot" replied Dr. Fell, "had not married."

  Celia was trembling violently. Holden did not look at her.

  "I will not" scowled Dr. Fell, "discuss the various physical causes which may bring about hysteria. Except to say this: that the hysteric becomes dominated by a fixed idea. She believes, let us say, that she is blind. To all intents and purposes, she is blind.”

  "In a case like that of Margot Devereux, it is plain that to marry almost any man would be dangerous. Except in the remote chance of finding the right man, it would be disastrous. For its root is sexual.

  "Once married, she discovers (or thinks she discovers, which is the same thing) that physical intimacy with her husband is a matter of horror. She screams when he approaches her. His mere touch is nausea. And the poor devil of a husband, wondering bewilderdly what is wrong and why he has turned into a leper, is faced with a raging madwoman. And this may go on for years. And nobody ever knows."

  Dr. Fell paused. Distressed and yet dogged, he would not look round; he kept his eyes fixed on the crystal.

  And Holden, with a chill at his heart, recognized that his most poignant memory—the marriage in Caswall Church, with the colored dresses and the echo of music—must subtly alter in line. He must reinterpret the odd looks and tears of both Mammy Two and Obey. He must reinterpret now he remembered it the frankly dubious gaze of Dr. Shepton.

  But above all (curse himself for being so blind!) he must reinterpret Thorley Marsh.

  He must recognize why, in seven years, there had been changes in Thorley. Moods, expressions, whole sentences spoken by Thorley, crowded back to trouble him. Best of all he remembered Thorley being questioned by Dr. Fell in the Long Gallery last night. How do you know the door to your wife's bedroom was locked on her side? "It always was." And again Thorley's blank-voiced, groping cry: "Liquor always used to make me feel happy. It never does, now."

  "Dr. Fell!" Holden said softly.

  "Eh?"

  "This plain speaking is right Ifs got to be done. But do you think, in front of Celia—?" "I know," said Celia, and turned suddenly and put her cheek against his shoulder. "I heard about it this afternoon. But I never knew before. Dr. Fell! Tell them about . . . the seizures."

  "Yes, by thunder!" said Dr. Fell in a different voice.

  He put down his pipe, which had gone out.

  "The hysteric, under these conditions, is afflicted with attacks in the form of physical seizures. They may be brought on by a word, a look, by nothing at all. The husband, on one occasion, may completely lose his head. To quiet that screaming, he may strike his wife across the face with a razor strap; or try to choke the cries in her throat with his hands.

  "On other occasions, the attacks may be more severe. They may need medical aid. When the hysteric is afflicted like this, she has a tetanic attack—limbs rigid, body arched— exactly, to the eye of an uninformed person who sees it, like a case of strychnine poisoning."

  Here Dr. Fell, wheezing angrily, looked at Danvers Locke.

  "And then the hysteric, as hysterics will, admits to Celia Devereux that she has swallowed strychnine to end her tragic life! Archons of Athens! Can you wonder that another girl, perfectly normal but frightened half out of her wits because no one has seen fit to tell her, misunderstands all this? Can you wonder Celia Devereux thought what she did think? Good God, what would you expect?"

  Dr. Fell controlled himself.

  Breathing noisily, he wedged himself back into the chair. He was silent for a moment, one hand shading his eyeglasses. Then he addressed Dr. Shepton very quietly.

  "Sir," he said, "it is not my place to question your professional conduct of this case."

  "Thank you." Dr. Shepton looked back at him steadily.

  "But why couldn't you have told Celia?"

  Dr. Shepton, though he looked very old and very tired, kept the stubborn set of his jaw. He was bending forward, his big-knuckled hands holding the Panama hat.

  "It's a pity," he murmured, shaking his head. "It's all such a pity!"

  "I quite agree with you."

  "But is it possible," insisted Shepton, "that you of all people still do not understand? I feared—we all feared— that..."

  "That Celia, being Margot’s sister, might be a hysteric too? And that to tell her all this might do her much harm?" "In fact, yes."

  ("Easy, Celia!" murmured Holden.)

  "Ah!" said Dr. Fell. "But, previous to Margot Marsh's death, had you ever any reason to suppose this about Celia?"

  "It was always a risk. It was always a risk!"

  "Sir, that was not the question I asked you. Had you any reason to suppose it?"

  "Nol No! I distinctly told Sir Donald Holden, two nights ago"—Dr. Shepton lifted his Panama hat and pointed with it—"that in Celia's version of what she called strychnine poisoning, there might have been room for . .. well! certain unavoidable misunderstandings."

  "There might have been room?"

  "Yes. And I would have told Sir Donald the whole story, too, if he had only come around to my hotel as I suggested. In reply to your main question: no! I had no concrete reason for suspecting Celia of hysterical delusions until .. ."

  Dr. Fell bent forward.

  "Until, in somebody's phrase, she began seeing ghosts all over the place? Is that correct?" "Yes."

  Unexpectedly, Dr. Fell began to chuckle.

  It began, with slow earthquake violence, in the lower ridges of his waistcoat It traveled up the tentlike alpaca suit in a spasm of uproarious amusement. Suddenly becoming conscious of Shepton's outraged look, Dr. Fell clapped his hand over his mouth and turned to Holden.

  "Forgive me!" he pleaded. "I was guilty of another such unmannerly outburst, if you recall, when I met you in the Long Gallery at Caswall. But, as we clear away the poisonous nonsense, I think you will join in. Will you cast your mind back to Wednesday evening about dusk?"

  "Well?"

  "To the first time you went out to the Regent's Park house?" "Well?" repeated Holden. "Well," said Dr. Fell simply, "I shadowed you." "You what?"

  "I," Dr. Fell announced proudly, "shadowed somebody. Didn't I tell you you'd allowed me to accomplish something I never believed was possible? At first I didn't shadow you consciously, of course. Let me explain."

  All the amusement faded out of Dr. Fell's expression. In that dim light his face looked grave and even sinister.

  "Celia Devereux's letter to the police had been received two days before. It was handed over to me, who already knew something of the matter from having sealed the vault.

  All the major events were outlined in that letter, including the ghosts of the Long Gallery. And I was disturbed. It
seemed to me that in the elder sister we were dealing with a case of sexual hysteria—"

  (For some reason, at this point, Sir Danvers Locke shuddered.)

  "—and in the younger sister, perhaps, with nervous hysteria. I didn't know. I had to make sure. So on Wednesday evening, armed with the letter, I went out to the house in Gloucester Gate to ask questions.

  "Ahead of me on the pavement," and again Dr. Fell nodded toward Holden, "I saw you bound for the same house.

  "I had no idea who you were, or of your status in this affair. But you went in by the back way. I followed. I saw you go up those iron stairs to the balcony outside the drawing room. I saw you strike a light, and peer in through the window. I heard a girl scream (it was Doris Locke), and a man cry out It seemed so extraordinary that I followed you up.

  "And what happened?

  "Outside those windows I heard more of the wretched, pitiable story. The tangled livesl The enshrouding misery! I learned who you were. I heard Thorley Marsh, who sincerely believed Celia to be mad just as she believed him a sadistic brute, I heard Thorley Marsh beg and plead with you to go away. And the door opened. And Celia Devereux walked in.

  Here Dr. Fell looked very steadily at Holden. "Have you forgotten," he asked, that you were supposed to be dead?"

  Holden started to get up off the divan, but sat down again. Dr. Fell nodded toward Celia, who had turned her head away.

  "Here is a girl," he said, "supposedly so neurotic that she is seeing ghosts everywhere. She has had no warning this man is alive. She really believes him dead. All she sees, in one terrifying flash, is his face looking at her against the light of a single lamp in a dark room.

  "And yet—she knows.

  "I see her again, standing against that door in her white dress. The nerves tell the brain; the brain tells the heart She does not even ask a question. She knows. 'They sent you on some special sort of job,' I hear her saying; 'that was why you couldn't see me or write to me.' And then, with a little nod, ‘Hello, Don.'"

  Holden would not have believed Dr. Fell's voice could be so gentle.

  But Dr. Fell would not look at Celia. Ponderously he turned his head away. Removing his eyeglasses, he pressed his hand for a moment over his eyes before putting back the glasses. He addressed Locke and Dr. Shepton.

  "Gentlemen," he said, "I write Q.E.D. and draw a flourish under it. If that girl is in the least neurotic, then I am the late Adolf Hitler. What does the prosecution say, what dares the prosecution say, in reply to that?"

  There was a long silence.

  "Well done!" said Locke, and struck his knee. "Write your Q.E.D.! Well done!"

  'You talk," cried Dr. Shepton, "as though—" He stopped. " Prosecution!'" he added. "You talk as though—"

  "Yes?" prompted Dr. Fell.

  "As though," he spoke in a quavering voice, "I wanted to harm Celia in some way!"

  "Forgive me," said Dr. Fell. "I know you don't. And you were misled. Blame the girl, if you like, for telling lies. But in God's name let us have an end of these hush-hush methods which nearly did send her out of her mind and drove her to telling lies!"

  "To—er—what do you refer by hush-hush methods?"

  "The carefully cherished secret of Margot Marsh's hysteria, which ended in her murder. I am going on to explain that murder."

  Dr. Fell picked up his dead pipe.

  "Let’s continue with the evidence of that same Wednesday evening. All this I heard and saw from the balcony outside the drawing room. Once (hurrum) I was nearly spotted. You may recall, my dear Holden, that on one occasion Thorley Marsh thought he heard somebody out on the balcony? In very truth he did.

  "However!

  "Having begun this business of shadowing, I continued it. When you and Celia left the house (forgive me again!), I followed you. You may perhaps have noticed the shadow, too large to be any but mine, which emerged after you when you crossed the street toward Regent's Park? In any case, one side of the park playground had an open side with an iron railed fence. Out of sight, beyond this, I heard the whole story," he nodded toward Celia, "from you.

  "I heard it in blazing detail. In shades and nuances and hints which in their implications were staggering. By thunder, but it was a revelation!

  "For if I postulated Margot Marsh as a hysteric, the approach of the storm could be seen with ugly clearness. About a year before her death, she changed. She became happy. Bright-eyed. Laughing and humming. Her own sister, not an observant person, says to her, You must have a lover.'

  "The hundred-to-one chance had happened. The hysteric had met a man to whom she was suited. She was deeply and physically in love. The outward symptoms of hysteria disappeared, which is what always happens in such cases. But, instead of helping matters, it led inevitably to disaster.

  "Why? Because she was bound to be thwarted! She wanted the person in question; wanted to marry him; and couldn't have him. For one thing, Thorley Marsh refused to allow a divorce."

  "Dr. Fell, listen!" interrupted Holden. "That’s the one part of the whole affair which doesn't seem to be reasonable!" He glanced at Locke. "Would you mind, now, if I did a little plain speaking?"

  "I mind?" Locke's eyebrows went up. "Why should I?"

  "About Doris, I mean."

  "Oh. Doris. I see." Locke's hands tightened round the glove and walking stick that lay across his lap. "No. Not at all. Of course not!"

  "In that case, Dr. Fell," demanded Holden, "where was the snag? If Thorley wanted to marry Doris, and Margot was violently in love with this other fellow, why couldn't there have been a compromise? Why did Thorley—of all people, in a situation like this—object to a divorce?"

  "For the most powerful reason in the world," replied Dr. Fell, "which you will understand when you learn the whole truth. Let me emphasize this, though it may seem a bit cryptic to you now, by asking you a certain question. It is a serious question. Don't treat it lightly."

  "Well?" prompted Holden.

  "Well," said Dr. Fell, "are you still jealous of Derek Hurst-Gore?" Dead silence.

  In the quiet of that muffled room they could hear, from the outer room, the rustle and blowing of curtains at the open windows. Clean air crept even into the haze and smoke of this lair. Celia Devereux, startled, turned up pleading eyes.

  "Don!" she cried. "You didn't really think that I... that Derek and I.. ?"

  "Please answer the question," intoned Dr. Fell. "Are you still jealous of Mr. Hurst-Gore?"

  "No, I'm not," Holden answered honestly. "When I only heard about him, and even when I first met him, he put my teeth on edge. But that passed very quickly. I think he's quite a decent sort"

  "Ah!" boomed Dr. Fell. His eyes opened wide. "And why do you think that? Isn't it because you know, in your heart, that you're the favored suitor?"

  Holden felt his cheeks grow hot. "I shouldn't like to put it quite . . ."

  "Come, sir! Isn't it?"

  "Very well. It is. But what application has this got to Margot and Thorley?" Dr. Fell ignored the question.

  "I need not stress the situation in the Marsh family," he went on, "since so much of it emerged in evidence yesterday. But think of the repressed violence, the hidden thunderbolts, crammed into it when that group went down to Caswall Moat House two days before Christmas!

  "Many months before, the hysteric has met her lover. For a time all is serene. Then, in October, as we hear from Celia Devereux, violent rows break out between Mr. and Mrs. Marsh. They are heard behind closed doors. Thorley Marsh knows all about it, or has heard all about it I think we are safe in postulating, at this stage, that Mr. Marsh knew who the man was."

  "Why should you think that?" demanded Locke.

  "Sir, your own daughter believes so," answered Dr. Fell. "She told Holden as much. If Margot wanted a divorce, she would obviously have told her husband who the man was.

  "Then (mark it!) there is a space of dangerous quiet while plans are being made. But it all boils up in tragedy when Margot and her husband, with Celia
here, go to Caswall two days before Christmas.

  "Follow the tensity of that scene, as described by Celia, before they set out for Widestairs in the evening to go to the party! Thorley Marsh, all that evening, so white faced that Obey thought he was ill: 'with furious dead-looking eyes.' And very polite.

  "His wife all of a glitter, all in the mood which you, Sir Danvers, described to me. We can't get away from it Late that afternoon or early in the evening—after going over to Widestairs to look for her husband—she had made one last appeal to him to arrange for a divorce. Thorley Marsh refused.

  "She never guessed for a second that her husband was, to put it delicately, fond of Doris Locke. No! It was her affair, her affair; that was all she thought of. All the world was blotted out except for that Margot Marsh had come to a decision. It was a typical hysteric's decision."

  Dr. Fell paused. With his dead pipe he gestured toward Holden.

  "Holden there," be said, "hit the nail bang on the head, or near enough, when he wrote two certain words on a piece of paper and gave it to me. He had worked out what Margot Marsh's decision—and her lover's decision too—apparently was. Tell these gentlemen what it was!"

  "But . . ." Holden began.

  ‘Tell them!"

  The eyes of Locke and Dr. Shepton, which seemed unnaturally large, were fixed on Holden. Tension had grown to such a point that no one except Dr. Fell could quite sit still.

  "If we decided this was murder—" Holden began.

  "Go on!"

  "If we decided this was murder, there was only one explanation of why it looked so much like suicide. Margot really had changed her gown in the middle of the night: dressing up (as Celia said) in the manner of someone going to a great dinner. Margot herself had the poison bottle, which we now know contained morphine and belladonna. The words I wrote for Dr. Fell were suicide pact."

  Locke started to get up.

  "You mean . . ?'

  "A suicide pact" retorted Holden, "arranged between Margot and her lover. At a certain time that night—she in one place, he in another—each of them was to drink poison. But he never intended to keep his side of the bargain. It would be a perfect method of murder."