Murder of a Lady

by Anthony Wynne

  That idea formed the basis of the first questions which Barley addressed to Duchlan. The old man looked pale and more wasted than usual but his eyes had not lost their quickness. He seated himself like a king about to give an audience and disposed his hands on the arms of his chair according to his habit. His head kept moving backwards and forwards. The detective showed him a deference which he had not accorded to any earlier witnesses.

  ‘‘My investigations,” he explained, ‘‘have made it necessary that I should inquire closely into the behaviour of your daughter-in-law both before and after the death of your sister.” He paused. When he spoke again his voice had assumed a grave tone. “I have reason to believe that you were a witness of certain incidents which you have not, so far, seen fit to mention to the police.”

  “For example?”

  “Mrs. Eoghan Gregor was in the habit of meeting Dr. McDonald at night on the shore.”

  Duchlan closed his eyes. The wrinkles in his face deepened as his muscles contracted. He looked like a mummy recalled suddenly to affliction.

  “You are aware that your daughter-in-law met Dr. McDonald in this way?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were the witness of one, or more, of these meetings?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was Miss Gregor with you on these occasions?”

  “Yes.”

  Barley leaned forward.

  “Was your presence observed by your daughter-in-law and the doctor?”

  The old man bowed his head.

  “Yes.”

  “That was the reason why Mrs. Eoghan retired to her bedroom at such an early hour on the day before your sister was murdered?”

  “My sister felt it to be her duty to warn my son’s wife. Unfortunately her kindness was misunderstood and resented.”

  Duchlan spoke in low tones, but his voice was perfectly clear. It was obvious that he suffered greatly in being forced to recall the incident. But Barley was inexorable.

  “I’m afraid,” he stated, “that I must ask for details. For instance, did Miss Gregor utter any threat?”

  “She said that, as Eoghan’s nearest relation, she must tell him about what was going on.”

  “Ah.”

  “As a matter of fact she had already written to Eoghan, hinting that things were not in a satisfactory state. She took that action, believe me, after long and most anxious consideration and after very many attempts to recall my daughter-in-law from the dangerous course on which she was embarking.”

  “I see.” Barley closed his eyes and nodded gravely. “Facilis est decensus Averni, sed revocare gradum,” he quoted insolently.

  The rest of the quotation was lost in his moustache. Duchlan sighed.

  “We had both done all that lay in our power to preserve Oonagh from disaster,” he said. “The time for warning had evidently gone by, though in my weakness, as I now recognize, I was prepared to accord one further chance.”

  “You were against telling your son?”

  “Perhaps I feared to tell him.” The old man glanced up rather timidly. “My son is quick-tempered. And he is devotedly attached to his wife.”

  “Miss Gregor over-ruled your fear?”

  “She anticipated it. I was not aware that she had written to Eoghan. When I heard that she had done so I recognized the wisdom of her action.”

  Dr. Hailey had been leaning back in his chair. He intervened to ask:

  “When Miss Gregor wrote to your son did she know about the meetings with Dr. McDonald at night?”

  “No. In point of fact neither she nor I knew about these meetings until the night before she met her death. What we did know was that my son’s wife was in constant communication with the doctor.”

  “So the question on the fatal day,” Barley exclaimed, “was whether or not a definite accusation was to be made as soon as your son returned?”

  “Yes.”

  “And whereas you favoured mercy, your sister was determined to punish?”

  “Please don’t express my dear sister’s attitude in that way,” Duchlan pleaded. “Goodness and mercy abounded in her heart. Her one, her only concern, believe me, was the welfare of this misguided and rebellious girl. She felt, I think, that her own influence was exhausted; Oonagh had defied her and made cruel and untrue accusations against her. My dear Mary wished that the strength of the husband might be made available to rescue the wife. Naturally her thought and care went out, too, to Eoghan, for she had been more than mother to him, and to Eoghan’s child, exposed meanwhile to these lamentable influences.”

  Barley shook his head.

  “No mother, in my humble judgement,” he declared, “can endure the thought that her child is to be taken away from her.”

  “You misunderstand, sir. My dear sister’s plan was not to remove Hamish from his mother’s custody, but to place his mother under some measure of restraint. She felt that if Oonagh could be influenced by herself, the girl’s good qualities of courage and cheerfulness might be developed in such a way as to effect a change of character.”

  Barley shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands. Then his business-like manner reasserted itself.

  “Did your daughter-in-law complain to you or your sister,” he asked, “that her husband had failed to provide her with a home of her own?”

  “She did, yes. She made many bitter and unjust complaints against Eoghan. These, as you can imagine, were very difficult to bear and it needed all my dear sister’s self-restraint and kindness of heart to bear them. We pointed out to her that she was fortunate in possessing a good and kind husband whose sole desire it was to make her happy and to make provision for her boy. The pay of an Army officer is small. Eoghan’s resources were slender and had it not been that his aunt and I, but especially his aunt, gave him some financial help…”

  Barley interrupted with a sudden gesture.

  “So,” he exclaimed, “your son and his wife were dependent to some extent on your sister’s bounty?”

  “To a very great extent. The pay of a Captain in the gunners approximates to £1 a day. Eoghan’s personal expenses absorb all that. My daughter-in-law has been living here at the expense of myself and of my dear sister.” Duchlan paused and raised his eyes. “Not that we have ever begrudged her anything for her good.”

  “You made your son no regular allowance?”

  The old man raised his hand and moved it in a circle which indicated and presented his estate.

  “How could I? You’ve seen these heather hills. What is there to yield an income? Believe me, it has been as much as I could do to make ends meet these many years. When Eoghan told me he was going to marry, I had to warn him that he must make provision for his wife out of his pay. Then my dear Mary came to his rescue. She possessed a considerable fortune of her own.”

  Barley’s face expressed both doubt and some indignation.

  “It appears to me,” he said, “that your late sister made a mistake in her manner of giving. Your daughter-in-law must have felt like a charity boarder in this house. Does she, tell me, possess any means of her own?”

  “Oh, no. None.”

  “What did she do for pocket money, pin money, whatever it’s called?”

  “My dear sister allowed her to buy her clothing at certain shops…”

  “What, do you mean to say she had no money that she could call her own?”

  “I think Eoghan sent her such sums of money as he could spare.”

  “Her position was worse than that of your servants?”

  Duchlan did not reply for a few minutes. Then he said:

  “She had no expenses so long as she remained here with us.”

  “I see.” Barley leaned forward suddenly. “Tell me please: At what period of her stay did your daughter-in-law begin to complain of her husband?”

  “She has ne
ver seemed to be really satisfied. But these last weeks have been much more trying than any earlier period.”

  “Since she became friendly with McDonald?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “It was during the last few weeks, was it, that she began to demand a home of her own?”

  Duchlan inclined his head.

  “After she ran away from this house,” he stated in low tones. “That evening saw the crisis of her relations with my sister. She told my sister that she would never again be indebted to her for a crust of bread. She said she was going away to earn her own living by any means that offered, even if it meant going into domestic service.”

  “Did she talk in that way after she came back?”

  Barley asked the question in tones which thrilled with excitement. He thrust his body forward as if he feared to miss a syllable of the reply.

  “Not quite in that way. After she came back she expressed a determination to have a home of her own, with her husband and child.”

  There was a short period of silence. The cackle of a seagull fell unseasonably on their ears. Then Barley waved his hand.

  “It boils down to this, I venture to think,” he remarked, “namely, that Miss Gregor suspected your daughter-in law and was determined to expose her to her husband, doubtless from the highest motives. That, believe me, was likely to be a serious affair both for Mrs. Eoghan and for Dr. McDonald. As Mrs. Eoghan is not possessed of any private means, her position as a divorced wife, deprived of her child, must have been sufficiently melancholy. As for the doctor, he ran a great risk of being removed from the Medical Register and so completely ruined. It’s obvious therefore that both the woman and the man had strong motives for wishing that your sister might be removed from their paths.”

  Duchlan did not reply. Even his fingers were still. The detective rose and struck his hands together.

  “I suggest,” he declared in tones that were menacing, “that it was these considerations which led you to suggest to your daughter-in-law, after the murder of your sister, that she had better take immediate steps to cheat the gallows?”

  “What! You accuse me…”

  “Pardon me, Duchlan, but the facts as I know them admit, in my humble opinion, of no other explanation. You believed that your daughter-in-law was party to the murder of your sister by Dr. McDonald. His fate did not concern you; hers did. She is your son’s wife, the mother of your only grandson, of the heir to Duchlan. You knew very well that if she drowned herself there would be silence not only about her share in the crime but even about the manner of her death. There is no Coroner’s Court in Scotland. Moreover, only you knew about her meetings with Dr. McDonald. So long as she lived there was the dreadful fear that these relations might continue and so be discovered. Her death promised safety for everybody, for you and your son and your son’s son, for your house and your name.”

  The silence fell again and deepened so that the chiming of a clock in the hall outside was an intolerable burden. Duchlan’s head began to nod like the head of one of those cunning ivory toys which react for long periods to the slightest touch.

  “Your daughter-in-law,” Barley added, “yielded to your compulsion. Acknowledgment, surely, of her guilt.”

  Chapter XXII

  Torture

  When Duchlan had gone away, Dr. Hailey gave the detective an account of his interview with Dr. McDonald.

  “You can, of course, question him yourself if you wish,” he added, “but I think that if you do, you will waste your time. He admitted quite frankly that he had fallen in love with Mrs. Eoghan; he denied and went on denying, that she has ever, in any degree, given him encouragement.”

  “Did he?” Barley’s expression showed how much importance he attached to such a statement. “It’s curious, if he’s telling the truth, that Mrs. Eoghan should have tried to drown herself; indeed, that these murders were committed at all. Innocent people never commit crimes to escape from unjust accusations.”

  “I agree. But innocent people sometimes sacrifice themselves to preserve those they love.”

  “Why should Mrs. Eoghan have thought that her husband had killed his aunt?”

  “I feel sure she did think so.”

  “Yes, but why, why?”

  “If one loves one fears. There was a strong motive, remember.”

  Barley frowned.

  “That’s saying that she believed her husband capable of murder.”

  He stared at Dr. Hailey as he spoke. When the doctor shook his head he frowned again.

  “It may mean that, of course. But does it necessarily mean that? Knowing that a strong motive exists one may be seized by a dreadful fear, a fear that does not shape itself in words, scarcely even in thoughts; that is a feeling rather than an idea. And one may act on that feeling…”

  “Still, the basis of the idea is murder.”

  “No, I think the basis of the idea is sympathy, the knowledge of human nature which we all derive from the fact of our own humanity. Is there a single crime that you or I might not commit in certain circumstances? You remember: ‘But for the grace of God there goes John Bunyan.’ I feel sure that only very stupid or very vain people are so entirely sure of themselves as to believe themselves immune from temptation. Saints and sinners have more in common than is usually supposed.”

  Barley leaned back in his chair. His face assumed a gracious expression.

  “Your method, believe me,” he declared, “is rich in attraction for me. If I could believe that Mrs. Eoghan cared for her husband, I might even be persuaded. But what are the facts?” He shook his head. “Can you doubt, speaking as man to man, that she cared for McDonald? Does a woman run away at night to a man in whom she is not specially interested? Does she meet that man in secret? Women, believe me, are not easily got rid of when their affections are engaged. But she was shrewd. If she couldn’t have the doctor, she did not mean to lose her husband. Remember that Miss Gregor’s death served the purposes of three different people: It rescued Dr. McDonald, it saved Eoghan Gregor, and it gave back her husband and child to the woman.”

  “Even so, McDonald struck me as being an honest man.”

  Barley did not reply. He had made up his mind to question Dr. McDonald and was not the man to be turned from such a resolution.

  Assuming his singular dust-coat, which made him look like a chess-board, he drove to Ardmore with Dr. Hailey during the afternoon. They found the doctor at home. He took them to a small room at the back of the house, which smelt faintly of iodoform. The room contained a number of glass cases full of instruments and numerous jars in which lints and gauzes were stored. Though the cleanliness and order of this surgery were beyond reproach, it had a desolate aspect. The spirit somehow was lacking.

  Dr. McDonald opened a drawer in the desk which occupied the end of the room and took out a box of cigars.

  “You’ll smoke, Inspector?”

  “No, thank you.” Barley sat down on a leather-covered couch and crossed his legs. He got to business immediately, explaining that the questions he was about to ask were likely to tax both memory and observation.

  “Let us go back, in the first place, to the night of the murder of Miss Gregor. You were, I understand, summoned on that night to see Mrs. Eoghan Gregor’s little boy?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “About what time?”

  “About half-past nine.”

  “Did Mrs. Eoghan Gregor receive you?”

  “She was in the nursery. The child had had another of his hysterical attacks and was rather weak. I…”

  “Excuse me interrupting you, but how was Mrs. Eoghan Gregor dressed?”

  “She wore a blue dressing-gown.”

  “Was the maid, Christina, in the nursery?”

  “Yes. But as soon as I arrived she went away to attend to Miss Gregor. She came back before I left.”
>
  “So that you and Mrs. Eoghan Gregor were alone?”

  “With the child, yes.”

  “Did Mrs. Eoghan seem to be unduly excited?”

  McDonald raised his head sharply. A look of anxiety appeared on his face.

  “She was distressed about the child.”

  Barley thrust out his hands.

  “I shall be frank with you,” he declared. “Duchlan has just told me that Mrs. Eoghan and her aunt quarrelled violently during the evening, for which reason Mrs. Eoghan retired early to bed. What I want to know is whether or not Mrs. Eoghan discussed this quarrel with you.”

  “She told me that she was upset with the attitude her aunt was adopting towards her.”

  “Did she tell you that her aunt accused her of being in love with yourself?”

  Barley’s voice rang out. But the impression he produced was less than he seemed to expect. McDonald nodded.

  “She told me that, yes.”

  “That Miss Gregor was determined to impart all her suspicions to her nephew on his return?”

  “Yes.”

  The detective thrust his head forward:

  “That meant ruin both for Mrs. Eoghan and yourself?” he demanded.

  “Possibly, if Eoghan Gregor believed his aunt.”

  “Have you any reason to suppose that he would not have believed her?”

  McDonald wiped his brow.

  “Eoghan Gregor,” he said in quiet tones, “is in love with his wife, and she is in love with him.”

  “Nevertheless his wife was meeting you each evening after dark?”

  “Did Duchlan tell you that too?”

  “He did.”

  “It’s not true. We met on one or two occasions only, because Mrs. Eoghan wished to ask my advice.” Suddenly McDonald’s voice rang out: “You can have no idea of the torture inflicted on that poor girl by her father-in-law and her aunt.”

  “Torture! Torture!” Barley exclaimed in tones which rebuked such extravagance of language.

  McDonald rose and began to stump about the room. His powerful body seemed too big for its narrow limits. Dr. Hailey was reminded of a young tiger he had seen pacing its cage at the Zoo.