The Madman's Room

by Paul Halter

  Paula, who was gazing absently at the fire, nodded in agreement.

  ‘The first thing to notice is that Francis didn’t win that night, which was very unusual…it was assumed that his thoughts were elsewhere. The truth is that he was trying to introduce into the pack, and into his sister’s hands, two very significant cards—always the same two—which would attract Brian’s attention. Two ordinary cards in spades, which would have no significance to the normal player, but which to Brian spelled death. Francis was playing with Meadows against Sarah and Brian. He was seated to the right of his sister and it was he who gathered up the cards and handed them to her before she dealt. A slight false movement and they fell to the floor, attributed to Sarah’s nervousness. It happened several times in the course of the evening, by the end of which Brian was convinced his sister-in-law’s days were numbered. He was reluctant to tell her, but he felt he couldn’t keep quiet.

  ‘Once the fatal prophecy was made, all that was left for Francis to do was to execute his diabolical strategy and kill Sarah without leaving a trace. Before handing over to Patrick Nolan here, I must inform you that the perfect crime did require some preparation, without which the murderer wouldn’t have succeeded. It was vital that the victim be in a particular frame of mind to collapse at the sight of what Francis would show her. She did indeed die of a heart attack, as the medical examiner has confirmed. Francis knew she had a weak heart and it was that weakness which he planned to exploit. As soon as he became convinced that she did indeed intend to marry Meadows, he set the machinery in motion, which consisted, as you’ve probably guessed, of persuading Sarah that her husband wasn’t really dead after all. There are several instances which we know about: one evening, the electrical fuses blow and somebody ruffles Sarah’s hair. It was Francis, of course. Another time he filled the study with smoke from Harris’s brand of cigar. A subtle hint, but one very disconcerting for Sarah. And it was he who appeared in the woods—disguised as Harris, needless to say—taking care to be visible to his sister and not to you, Mrs. Hilton, who were with your sister-in-law at the time. Those are instances we know about, but there were undoubtedly other tricks suggesting the return of her deceased husband.

  ‘The whole business was conducted in a masterly fashion, and Francis held all the aces to control the situation. Sarah could confide in no one but him. Only he knew that it was she who killed her husband, and the manifestations of the deceased were calculated to exploit that fact. A ghost can be a vengeful spirit and I’m sure Francis underlined that point, just as he reminded Sarah of its jealous nature—hardly likely to appreciate a new fiancé, particularly if he happened to be a certain Dr. Meadows. Which made it practically impossible for her to share her fears with the latter. The conversation between Francis and his sister, overheard by Mr. Nolan, illustrates perfectly the insidious manner in which our murderer gives credence to her late husband’s return. He uses his own fainting fit—false though it was, and primarily intended for Brian’s benefit—to hint to Sarah that it was her dead husband that he saw in front of the fireplace. Let me remind you that she was unaware that her brother’s collapse was pure trickery, so the conversation inevitably makes her even more desperate. What has her brother seen? Why doesn’t he want to tell her? Francis knows his sister has a thousand questions, but he pretends that he can’t remember—or, rather, that he doesn’t want to remember. His words say that he’s seen nothing, but his voice, the expression on his face, and indeed his whole being, convey the contrary: he’s seen something so insane and so horrible he can’t bring himself to talk about it, for fear of terrifying Sarah even further. How, then, can she not believe that it was her late husband who’d been seen lying there, in the same spot where he’d met his death?

  ‘Mr. Nolan, you saw and heard them at that moment. Are you in agreement with what I’ve just said?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Twist put the tips of his fingers together in a sign of meditation, then turned to Hurst.

  ‘Do you remember, old friend, when you told him someone had overheard them talking and he looked worried stiff? He was in a delicate position, because he didn’t know exactly what had been heard and what hadn’t. He was astute enough not to deny the facts and stick broadly to the truth. He would have preferred not to have divulged what it was that Sarah feared, but he was more or less obliged to, and got out of it rather well, by using the same technique which had worked on his sister: playing the fellow who doesn’t want to believe in such things. And he put it all down to the sinister atmosphere of the place and Sarah’s contagious anxiety. It was very convincing, and I freely admit I believed him at the time.’

  ‘Actually, I thought there was something fishy about the whole situation, myself,’ said the inspector, with an assurance which fooled nobody.

  ‘There is one thing in this dark and sinister tale which did make me smile,’ said Alan Twist. ‘Francis succeeded so brilliantly in terrifying his sister that she secretly changed her will in favour of Brian, hoping in that way to appease the vengeful ghost. I take great pleasure in imagining how he felt when the terms of the new will were announced. Be that as it may, he did achieve almost all he was aiming for. His sister was half dead with fright and it only remained to administer the final blow. After all that’s been said, you can probably guess what the “thing” was that finally killed her. Mr. Nolan, it’s your turn to speak, because you were the first to understand.’

  28

  Patrick cleared his throat, emptied his glass, and began:

  ‘I was indeed the first to understand, but I can’t take much credit. On that Monday evening, at around half -past eight—in other words, an hour and a half before Sarah’s death—I was coming back from London when I happened to see Francis coming out of the Blounts’ garden. He was pushing a wheelbarrow containing a corpse… a rather special one. I also need to tell you that, a few weeks earlier, I happened to see him coming out of an establishment specialising in refrigeration equipment, but he didn’t see me.’

  ‘He’d frozen Harris Thorne’s corpse!’ exclaimed the chief superintendent in astonishment.

  People shifted uneasily in their seats.

  ‘Exactly. And it was that corpse which he brought into Harris’s old study and placed in front of the fireplace. Can you imagine the devastating shock that Sarah suffered upon seeing her late husband on the same spot where he’d died a year earlier? Let me remind you that the lamp on the desk was lit: Francis must have placed it in such a way as to maximise the effect. And a corpse which had been thawing out for over an hour. He didn’t even need to splash any water to wet the carpet. In theory, he couldn’t be absolutely certain that the scene would cause his sister to have a heart attack, but given all the conditioning he’d subjected her to, any other outcome would be hard to imagine.’

  ‘It’s monstrous,’ declared Redfern. ‘Absolutely monstrous.’

  ‘The bastard,’ said Meadows with gritted teeth.

  The others were quiet. Bessie, horrified, took Paula in her arms. The murderer’s wife, shaking uncontrollably, appeared about to be sick. Patrick watched her, powerless to do anything. She caught his stare and pulled herself together, ready to hear the rest of his story.

  ‘What is certain, however, is that the murder, as Dr. Twist has said, had been planned for a long time. For there’s no doubt that Harris Thorne had been frozen just after being placed in the family vault. But how and where? Francis had quickly realised that the Blounts’ abandoned workshop would be an ideal hiding-place. Furthermore, it contained a huge chest filled with sawdust and wood shavings, material often used to prevent water pipes from freezing, and therefore excellent for insulation. Inside the chest, he constructed a smaller one from planks, in which he placed the corpse. He packed the space around the corpse with dry ice—frozen carbon dioxide— which stays in a solid state at lower temperatures than water ice. At higher temperatures, it turns into a gas which is also a good insulator. It’s manufactured by the Cope Refrigerating Company
, where I was investigating a case of adultery and where I saw Francis. I think he used to travel there once or twice a week?’

  The question was addressed to Paula, who nodded vaguely.

  ‘Ah! I forgot: you all know the effects of carbon dioxide gas. The workshop had to be aerated. It wasn’t an accident that the glass in several of the workshop’s windows had been smashed. Even so, Bessie, your grandfather suffered ill effects the one time he decided to go in there, do you remember?’

  ‘Yes, and I remember—.’

  ‘That Francis almost fainted when he heard your grandfather had gone out there,’ interrupted Paula. Her eyes filled with tears. Redfern served her a port and refilled the others’ glasses in an attempt to calm things down. After filling his pipe, Dr. Twist picked up the narrative:

  ‘There’s still the mystery of the double appearance of Harris Thorne after Sarah’s funeral, but first let’s finish with the events on the night of the murder. At half past eight, Francis obviously wasn’t in the study as he claimed, because at that very moment he was transporting the corpse from the Blounts’ workshop to the manor, where he almost certainly placed it in the storage room adjacent to the study. At nine o’clock, Mrs. Hilton, you take him a cup of coffee—which I assume he’d requested at the start of the evening, for that specific time?’ Paula nodded silently. ‘Very well. You realise that it was important that someone confirm that, at that moment, there was nothing suspect about the room…. After that, you both go down to the salon. Between nine-twenty and nine-thirty, you leave Sarah all alone: you, Mrs. Hilton, to make some more coffee, and Francis supposedly to go to the game room. But, in reality, he slips out and uses those ten minutes—more than enough time---to transfer Harris’s corpse from the storage room into the study, in front of the fireplace. At ten o’clock, Sarah goes up to the “cursed room.” Francis, far from being in the game room as he later claimed, has been lurking in wait and follows his sister furtively at a distance, not only to observe whether the “operation” goes according to plan, but also to dispose of the body after the fatal moment. Cathy Restarick observing Sarah collapse was most definitely not foreseen, but the impromptu moment doesn’t actually affect the plan. How does he get rid of Harris’s corpse afterwards? It’s impossible to say with certainty. I think he must have thrown it out of the window after the maid left—just as he’d done a year earlier—and rushed down the stairs and out of the service door to hide it behind a bush, before hastening back to the game room. I also believe he put it in the boot of his car when he went to alert Meadows a little later, so he could drop it in a safer spot before putting it back where it was supposed to be: in its coffin.

  ‘All in all—with the exception of the changes to his sister’s will—you could say that everything has gone according to plan, up until the day of Sarah’s funeral last Friday. That’s when he gets the shock of his life: the dead man he’s just resuscitated has been seen by Patrick Nolan! What are his feelings at that moment? It’s not hard to imagine. There are a thousand questions teeming in his bewildered mind. Is someone amusing themselves by playing the role of the dead man, just as he’d done himself several times? No, that’s ridiculous. An extraordinary coincidence? Hard to believe. What he’s most worried about is the crypt getting searched. If anyone should find the “fresh” corpse of Harris Thorne, that could put investigators on his track. Incidentally, there’s no way to tell whether a body’s been frozen or not. Possibly he didn’t know that. But, in any case, if they did guess it had been, that simply couldn’t be helped. On the other hand, it was absolutely vital to eliminate all traces of the conservation operation in the Blounts’ workshop, the simplest and surest way being to set fire to it. Which he does that same night.’ Twist shot a discreet glance at Paula. ‘There’s nothing to indicate that he realised Brian was in there when he threw the match through the window.’

  Even though no one said so, it was quite clear that nobody in the room believed that the prospect of another murder would have deterred Francis in any way. Twist continued:

  ‘I wouldn’t have wanted to be in Francis’s shoes the following day, Sunday, when two tourists formally identified the driver of the car that had hit them. I’m sure you can recall the expression on his face the night we told him we were going to visit the chapel. Enough said. But none of that explains the double reappearance of Harris Thorne, who refuses to stay in his coffin. I feel I should warn you puzzle lovers in advance that the explanation is disappointingly simple. Over to you again, Mr. Nolan.’

  Patrick undid the top button of his shirt. His eyes remained stubbornly riveted to the tips of his shoes as he started to speak:

  ‘I must tell you at the start,’ he said, in an almost unrecognisable voice, ‘that the Thurlows weren’t entirely unknown to me. They’re close friends and Louis is my associate in the detective agency.’

  Redfern looked thunderstruck at the revelation, and Twist and Archibald Hurst both cleared their throats.

  ‘As I told you just now,’ continued Patrick, his face scarlet, ‘I began to vaguely understand the situation on Monday evening when I observed Francis in the process of transporting a corpse in a wheelbarrow, and then when I took a peep inside the workshop. But it was only the next day, when I learnt of Sarah’s death, that I began to understand the significance of what I’d seen. Many of the details still remained obscure, but I knew enough to be certain that Francis had killed his sister.

  ‘Why didn’t I denounce him then? For I could have easily have done so. Besides my own testimony, there must have been other clues in the workshop. I kick myself now for not having had the good sense to go back at the time, because then I would have discovered Brian and he wouldn’t now be in hospital… I wasn’t trying to cover up what Francis had done—far from that—but I didn’t want to be the one who denounced him… or, rather, I didn’t want one particular person to know I was the one. Because that person might think that I’d acted for personal reasons… She might even have thought I was lying to discredit the person who… and would end up believing Francis was innocent. I know none of this is very clear, but the person in question knows what I mean.’ Patrick continued to stare at the tips of his shoes. ‘To sum it up, Francis had to pay for his crime, but without me accusing him to his face.

  ‘What I decided to do could be criticised in some respects: there might have been simpler ways to lead the investigators to understand what had happened. But I wanted to maintain the atmosphere of the affair by progressively frightening the villain, backing him into a corner, and causing him to lose his reason once he realised that the end was inevitable. And a night inspection to the family vault seemed like a nice finishing touch. I didn’t know whether Francis had put the corpse back into its coffin, but an empty coffin would have been just as suspect. Anyway, to cut a long story short, the person I supposedly saw after the funeral, and who resembled Harris Thorne like two peas in a pod, never existed. I made the whole thing up. As for Harris Thorne the demon driver, he was made up, too. I contacted Louis Thurlow last Thursday and told him where to find the convertible. It was he who borrowed it and put it back after damaging the wing of his own vehicle, with the assistance of his wife. I don’t think I need to draw a picture.’

  The chief superintendent was sitting with his mouth open.

  ‘Let me see now,’ purred Hurst, with a feline smile, ‘false testimony during a murder investigation… That could cost the three of you dearly, not to mention your detective agency. Concealment of evidence, withholding of facts, manipulation of police officers in the execution of their duty… Luckily for you, we know how to observe a discreet silence. I’d like to point out, however, that during our visit to the kingdom of the dead, the culprit didn’t crack, as you obviously had hoped.’ His face saddened. ‘And maybe that was a blessing in disguise. The terrible collision which cost the lives of the Hiltons—already suffering from the loss of their daughter—also avoided them learning the horrible truth about their son.’

  EPILOGUE />
  At the end of the week, Paula returned to Padstow to move in with her parents. She raised no objection when Patrick proposed accompanying her, neither did she manifest any joy. Would she be able to forgive him one day? She didn’t reproach him for anything, anything at all. Knowing him, she wasn’t at all surprised he’d acted as he did. Would she allow him to visit from time to time? She saw no objection, but showed no enthusiasm, either.

  Patrick’s parents saw their son more often in a few weeks than in the previous several years, as the young detective visited them regularly. Relations between Paula and Patrick returned to what they had been before that famous midnight swim, but without the mischief and joyful laughter. Just friends, no more than that.

  Winter passed, sombre and gloomy, and the days started to get longer. The migrant birds returned along with the first warmth of spring. Whenever Patrick visited Padstow to see his friend, he always invited her to lunch in a restaurant noted for its fine cuisine, its excellent cellar and the propriety of its staff, and that day in May was no exception. Except that, on that day, as they were seated in the dining room overlooking the bay, he thought he detected, for the first time, the flicker of a smile. He reached across the table and touched her hand. She didn’t pull it away….

  The following month, White Camellia and Blue Reed went on their honeymoon.

  What happened to Dr. Meadows? One might have imagined him saddled with a rich, austere and authoritarian wife. Not a bit of it. He married one of the most beautiful young women in the county. And one of the richest as well. The only cloud on the horizon: two months after the wedding, she eloped with a silver-tongued travelling salesman. Dr. Meadows still hasn’t got over it.