Murder of a Lady

by Anthony Wynne

  He paused. Dr. Hailey, who was watching him closely, asked:

  “How did she receive that opinion?”

  “Badly, that’s to say, with an exquisite resignation. ‘Of course, doctor,’ was what she said, ‘we must all bow to your discretion in a matter of this kind. You alone are possessed of the knowledge necessary to a decision. But I do feel that I have a duty to place before you those personal considerations which no doctor can be expected to learn for himself.’ In other words: ‘If you’re on the side of the enemy, I shall make it exceedingly unpleasant for you.’ I saw the promise of that in her eyes. And she knew that I saw it.”

  “You stood your ground, though?”

  There was eagerness in the doctor’s tones.

  “Yes. That old woman roused my fighting instinct. There was a whine in her voice that made my hair bristle. She used to pronounce the word ‘dear’, ‘dee-ah’, and she always pronounced Mrs. Eoghan’s name ‘Una’ although she had been corrected hundreds of times. Behind her stubborn nature there was a kind of impishness, a wicked quality, which took joy in hurting the people she didn’t like. You looked at the saint or the martyr and you knew that a little devil was watching you out of her swimming eyes.”

  McDonald’s face was red. He shook his head.

  “If there had been another doctor here, he would have been sent for. But there isn’t. She had to put up with me. Each time we met I felt that her dislike was growing. And she couldn’t dislike without disapproving. People who got into her black books were soon described by her as ‘not the right thing’, a phrase which she knew how to use so that it conveyed an impression of moral obliquity. I was certain I should not have long to wait for some proof of her wish to punish me…”

  Dr. Hailey held up his hand.

  “A moment, please. Did you continue to visit Hamish?”

  “Yes.”

  “And to refuse to allow Miss Gregor to interfere?”

  “I refused to agree that Mrs. Eoghan should leave the child and go to Ireland. One day I said that I thought a child’s mother was always the best nurse who could be obtained for him. Miss Gregor winced when I said that, and just for one instant I was sorry for her.”

  “I see.”

  McDonald’s nervousness increased. He tried to relight his pipe and then abandoned the attempt.

  “A week later, three weeks ago,” he said, “I heard a knock at this door one night just when I was going to bed. I opened the door. Mrs. Eoghan was standing behind it.”

  A deep silence fell in the room. It was broken by the pleasant sound of blocks and tackle, the hoisting of sails. Dr. Hailey nodded without offering any comment.

  “The girl was in a terrible state, weeping, hysterical, half-crazy. She fell into the hall when I opened the door. I picked her up. Her clothes seemed to have been flung on anyhow. I carried her in here and put her in that chair,” with a sudden, jerky gesture he indicated the chair in which Dr. Hailey was seated. “She told me she had left Duchlan for ever. Later on, when she had recovered a little, she told me that she had had a violent quarrel with Miss Gregor. She said Hamish had had another turn. ‘Aunt Mary accused me of ill-using him…killing him. I lost all control of myself.’”

  “Did it surprise you,” Dr. Hailey asked, “that she should have lost control of herself?”

  “No, no. What surprised me was that she had endured Miss Gregor so long.”

  “I didn’t mean that. Do you think her a hysterical type?”

  McDonald hesitated.

  “Not hysterical; highly-strung. She has an extremely quick intelligence and a great honesty of mind. Miss Gregor’s hypocrisy exasperated her to delirium. She didn’t care what happened. She told me that she didn’t care what happened.” He covered his eyes with his hand. “I lit the fire here because the night had grown chilly. I boiled the kettle and made tea. After a while she grew calmer and described what had happened. They had all gone to bed. The nurse had called her because Hamish seemed to be breathing badly. She had hurried upstairs to find Miss Gregor giving the child a dose of sal volatile. You can imagine the rest. I had said that stimulants were not to be given.”

  “Miss Gregor had suggested a dose of sal volatile?”

  “Yes. That morning. Mrs. Eoghan ordered her out of the nursery. She obeyed but roused her brother and brought him upstairs to fight her battle for her. Duchlan was clay in her hands; like most cowards he has a cruel streak in his nature.”

  McDonald broke off. His uneasiness was increasing. He put his pipe down and stood staring in front of him at the pictures on the wall opposite. “Naturally Mrs. Eoghan quoted my order. She demanded that I should be sent for. Duchlan said: ‘It seems to me, and your aunt agrees with me, that Dr. McDonald has been sent for quite often enough lately.’ There was no mistaking what he insinuated. She wouldn’t defend herself. She left them and came here.”

  “I see.” Dr. Hailey moved in his chair. He looked up and saw that his companion was still gazing at the pictures. The muscles of McDonald’s neck stood out rigidly; his arms were stiff.

  “Miss Gregor had prompted that remark?”

  “Of course. She did all her brother’s thinking for him. Mrs. Eoghan realized that the prompting hadn’t stopped at Duchlan…”

  “What?”

  “Miss Gregor wrote regularly to Eoghan.”

  “And yet Mrs. Eoghan came here. Surely that was playing directly into the enemy’s hands?”

  Dr. Hailey kept his eyes averted without knowing exactly why he did so. A prolonged silence followed his question. At last McDonald said:

  “I fancy Eoghan had written his wife an unkind letter.”

  “Blaming her for sending for you?”

  “Accusing her perhaps of being in love with me.”

  Dr. Hailey sat up.

  “Do you mean that she was leaving her husband and child when she came here?” he exclaimed.

  “She was.”

  They heard another sail being hoisted. The sound of rowlocks came up to them from the harbour and then, suddenly and intolerably, the hoot of a steam-whistle.

  “Why did she come to you?” Dr. Hailey asked.

  “For advice and shelter.” McDonald turned and picked up his pipe. His uneasiness seemed to have left him. He lit the tobacco and began to smoke.

  “Naturally,” he said, “you want to know how much truth there was in Miss Gregor’s suggestion. So far as Mrs. Eoghan is concerned the answer is: None at all. But that isn’t the answer in my case. I want to tell you,” he turned and faced his companion as he spoke, “that I fell in love with Mrs. Eoghan almost as soon as I met her. Her husband was then in Malta. She was hungry for friendship and help and I gave her both. I’m not a child. I knew what had happened to me. And I knew that it was hopeless, in the sense that Oonagh was genuinely in love with her husband. But knowledge about the causes of pain does not help you when you’re compelled to bear it. What did help me was to try to smooth her way for her…”

  He shook his head.

  “She thought that I was acting solely from professional motives. They were there all right, mind you, those professional motives; the girl’s nerves were frayed, jagged. But Miss Gregor wasn’t so unsuspecting. I had dared to call her behaviour in question. I was an obstacle in her way. Worse, I was a danger. As I told you just now, she hated me.” He drew a deep breath. “Do you know, Hailey, there was something big in that wicked old woman’s character? I couldn’t help admiring her. The busy way she set about discrediting my motives—first in her own mind, then in Duchlan’s. What persistence! And mind you, I had sympathy for her too. Eoghan was her child. She meant to hold him and his for ever. I saw that in her little, quick brown eyes. I had more than Highland pride and Highland craft against me. More than a will as strong as buffalo hide. Motherhood, hungry, unsatisfied, implacable was the real enemy. Deep called to deep. I knew her and
she knew me. Only one mistake she made and that’s not strange in a woman. Oonagh wasn’t in love and hadn’t guessed, hadn’t dreamed what my feelings were. There’s the misfortune that nobody could cure. I’m the only doctor in a radius of twelve miles. Oonagh kept sending for me for herself or Hamish and I could plead my duty against my scruples. The old woman’s eyes saw every move. When Eoghan came back from Malta the tension reached breaking-point; only his going to Ayrshire prevented a break. He didn’t accuse Oonagh then of running after me, but that was in the back of his mind, where his aunt had put it. But he blamed her for her want of gratitude to his people and for her slackness in Hamish’s upbringing. They weren’t on speaking terms when he went away. The day he went away she sent for me and told me she was afraid of what she might do.”

  Chapter XVI

  Inspector Barley

  His confession seemed to release Dr. McDonald from bondage. His manner, until now gloomy and reserved, changed.

  “I’ve been frank with you, Hailey,” he said, “because, sooner or later, you’re bound to hear about the suspicions which Miss Gregor instilled into so many minds. I want you to know the truth. Oonagh belongs to Eoghan. Not for a single instant has she swerved from her loyalty to him. Her coming here was a gesture, a protest made when her fears for Hamish and her distress that her husband should have seemed to take sides against her had brought her to the edge of a breakdown.”

  He seated himself as he spoke and once more arranged his leg in front of him.

  “The end of the story, happily, was better than the beginning. I was trying to persuade her to let me take her back to the castle when a car came to the door. It was the old nurse, Christina, who had been sent as a peacemaker, because Duchlan and his sister were genuinely afraid by that time. The old woman was terribly distressed. You saw her last night. She fixed those queer, black eyes of hers on Oonagh’s face and told her that Hamish was crying for his mother. I don’t know, there was something in her voice, some tone or quality, that made that appeal irresistible. You saw the child’s face; heard his voice. Oonagh’s resistance broke down at once. Then the old woman comforted her, promising that her troubles would soon be at an end. You couldn’t help believing her. But she’s a retainer of the Gregors. I felt that, in her heart of hearts, she shared Miss Gregor’s suspicions of me. Queerly enough, she awakened a sense of guilt which I hadn’t experienced in any of my dealings with Miss Gregor.”

  He shook his head.

  “I wasn’t wrong. She had read my secret. She put Oonagh in the car and came back to this room for a shawl that had been left behind. I was outside at the car, and when she didn’t return, I followed her to find out if anything was amiss. She turned and gazed at me just as she had gazed at Oonagh, but with very hostile eyes. ‘Whom God hath joined together,’ she said in solemn tones, ‘let not man put asunder.’ Then she picked up the shawl and hurried away.”

  ‘‘Do you know what happened,” Dr. Hailey asked, ‘‘after Mrs. Eoghan got home?”

  ‘‘Oh, yes, they received her with relief if without cordiality. That feeling soon passes. What remained was the knowledge that she had disgraced them publicly—the unpardonable sin. I called on the child next morning. Miss Gregor was in the nursery; she told me that Mrs. Eoghan was in bed with a headache.”

  ‘‘She had yielded to them?”

  McDonald’s eyes narrowed. He shook his head.

  ‘‘I don’t think that is how I should put it. Oonagh isn’t an Irishwoman for nothing. She was biding her time. I realized that the real battle would be fought when her husband came back. But I knew also that the period of waiting for that event would be greatly distressing to Oonagh. She’s one of those women who can’t act alone, who needs a friend to advise her and help her to gather her forces.” He raised his right hand, holding the palm horizontal and keeping the fingers extended. “I suppose we all depend to some extent on the feelings which animate us at any given moment. It’s only on high emotional planes that we’re heroes.” He lowered his hand. ‘‘Down here is weakness and hesitation. I think the truth is that she came to me for strength. She told me, a few days later, that she only lived when she was talking to me.” He leaned forward. “Mind you, it wasn’t my strength she wanted; it was her own. I helped her to command her own strength.”

  Dr. Hailey nodded: “I know. Humanity as well as chemistry has its catalysts.”

  “Exactly.”

  Dr. Hailey rose to go. “Am I at liberty to tell the new detective from Edinburgh what you’ve told me?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He held out his hand. Suddenly he turned back.

  “Do you know why Eoghan came back so hurriedly from Ayrshire?”

  McDonald’s face lost its eagerness: a slow flush rose to his cheeks.

  “I suppose he came to borrow money. But Oonagh had sent for him.”

  “To take her away?”

  “Yes.”

  “He refused?”

  Dr. Hailey asked the question in the tones of a man who knows the answer.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Eoghan’s like his father, isn’t he?”

  McDonald shook his head.

  “In some ways. Not in all ways. For example, he isn’t superstitious. The terrible logic of the Irish clashes with that Highland element.”

  “When I met him,” Dr. Hailey said, “I realized that he was a difficult man to know. I formed no very clear idea of his character except that he was in love with his wife.”

  “I have no very clear idea of his character.”

  “Has his wife?”

  “She’s in love with him.”

  Dr. Hailey sighed.

  “Sometimes,” he confessed rather sadly, “I wonder what that means. Do lovers really see one another truthfully? Isn’t it rather their own illusions that they see?”

  There was no answer. McDonald passed his hand wearily across his brow.

  “Perhaps lovers see everything and forgive everything,” he said.

  When Dr. Hailey left McDonald he walked up the harbour to the manse. This was a big square house standing back from the road among scrubby trees that looked terribly wind-worn. He rang the bell. The door was opened by a small girl who stated that her father was at home. A moment later a short, stout man in clerical dress came into the hall. He advanced to the door, dismissing his daughter with a genial gesture.

  Dr. Hailey explained who he was and was immediately invited to come in. The Rev. John Dugald led the way to his study and shut the door. He moved a big arm-chair by its back and urged his visitor to sit down. After a glance at the formidable array of volumes with which all the four walls were lined the doctor complied.

  “What can I do for you?” the minister asked in rich Highland accents. His good-humoured face was grave, but his eyes gleamed with excitement.

  “I want you to tell me about Dr. McDonald.”

  “Really?” With an effort the Rev. John stifled his curiosity. “McDonald is not a member of my congregation,” he said. “He’s not a member, indeed, of any congregation. But I have always found him to be a good man, aye and a skilful man too. When my wee boy had bronchitis last winter, he saved his life.”

  Dr. Hailey inclined his head.

  “I’m sure he’s a good doctor. My concern, frankly, is with his personal character. His character as a man.”

  “That’s a hard question, sir.” The minister considered for a few moments. “If you had asked me that question six months ago,” he said, “I would have replied that McDonald was a poet and an artist who had lost his way and become a doctor. I would have said that his only interest was his books and his writing.”

  He broke off. A troubled look appeared on his face.

  “And now?”

  “Now it’s different. There have been rumours. Stories.”

  “Such as?”

&nbs
p; The Rev. John moved uncomfortably.

  “I’ll be frank with you. The village has begun to talk about the doctor’s intimacy with Mrs. Eoghan Gregor. And not the village only.”

  He leaned forward. His right hand descended to find his pipe on the top of a wooden coal-box which stood beside his chair.

  He put the pipe in his mouth.

  “The late Miss Gregor was one of my people,” he said. “She came to me a few days ago in the greatest distress to ask my advice. It appears that she had surprised her niece walking on the shore, after dark, with McDonald. What troubled her was whether or not she was bound in duty to report to her nephew.”

  “I see. What did you advise?”

  “I advised her to see Dr. McDonald and talk to him.”

  “Well?”

  “She then told me that she was scarcely on speaking terms with him.”

  Dr. Hailey frowned.

  “The suggestion being that McDonald was so deeply in love with Mrs. Eoghan that no plea was likely to be listened to?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What did you advise in those circumstances?”

  “I felt that I could not take the responsibility of giving any advice. But I offered to see the doctor myself. That offer was not accepted, and Miss Gregor went away saying that she must consult her own conscience.”

  “Were you the only person to whom she confided this information?”

  The minister shook his head.