Murder of a Lady

by Anthony Wynne

  The old man sighed deeply.

  “She was a lovely girl, as lovely as Oonagh. Her people had a small place in the west, by the sea. A lonely, desolate place where the bogs stretched for miles like a desert under the wild skies. She had been brought up there and had lived free of all restraint with her dogs and horses. The sea was in her eyes, and the love of the sea was in her heart. I felt as I looked at her that she had discovered the secret which, all my life, I had been seeking, namely, release from spiritual bondage. If I could only capture this wild, wonderful creature, she would teach me the way of her strength and courage and deliver me from my fear. I tried to tell her what was in my heart and I saw that she pitied me. It seemed so easy, in that land of hers, to possess one’s own soul and live out one’s dream. We fell in love with each other…”

  He broke off. They saw a shiver pass over his body.

  “She called me her ‘dour Scotsman’ and promised to make a wild Irishman of me. I stayed on at her home, week after week, forgetting everything but my love of her. This place and its associations became a dim memory, like the evening memory of a distressful dream. We needn’t, I thought, spend very much of our time at Duchlan. I can let the place and we can come and live in Ireland.”

  His voice had developed a rhythmic quality. As he bent and swayed in his chair he looked, Dr. Hailey thought, like some old bard singing of times long buried in the earth’s womb. Tears had gathered in his eyes; they crept down his cheeks, going from wrinkle to wrinkle.

  “That was treason; because my father had vowed that no stranger should ever dwell in Duchlan. But even my father had lost his power over me in that wilderness. I had fallen under the spell of your mother’s folk, who cared nothing for the ideas which live in this place. Your grandfather and your grandmother, your uncles and aunts were all of the same way of thinking. They belonged to life, to the present, to the Nature which surrounded and nourished them, and to each other. They were as generous as they were brave and their hospitality had no end. It never occurred to one of them to ask questions and whatever I said about myself was accepted as the whole truth. I ceased to feel lonely. I began to be thankful that my sister had got engaged. In other words, I surrendered myself completely to your mother’s influence.

  “We were married a few months later. When we returned from our honeymoon your aunt’s engagement had been broken off. She begged that she might be allowed to remain here for a few months until she was able to find a home elsewhere. I will not hide from you that, when I yielded to that request, I knew that I was making a sacrifice of your mother.”

  He sighed again. “And so it proved. My sister had broken off her engagement, as she confessed to me, because she could neither endure to leave this place nor to enter another family. Naturally, your mother resented her intrusion on our married life and wished to be quit of her. A duel began between them, of which I was the helpless and unwilling spectator. Both appealed to me daily. Soon, very soon, the strongest character asserted itself.

  “Your mother had a quick temper but with it a fatal generosity. Mary possessed neither the one nor the other. I used to marvel at the way in which she achieved her ends. She was as sleepless as a spider and as calculating. Everywhere, webs, webs, webs, until her victims were bound with gossamer that was stronger than steel. Violence could gain nothing against that subtlety.”

  He leaned forward. His voice grew louder.

  “For I was violent too; it is the way of the weak. I loved your mother and sometimes I dared to rebel. Sometimes I stormed and raged against the tyranny which threatened us; it was like the rage of a young child against the nurse who takes away its playthings. Then you were born.”

  Duchlan’s eyes closed again. He remained silent for a few minutes, motionless, like a figure carved out of old ivory. Then his fingers began to drum once more on the carved wood.

  “Your birth,” he continued, “made everything much worse because you are the heir. Your mother felt that you belonged to her; your aunt that you belonged to the Gregors. Your aunt was determined to take you away from your mother and in addition she wanted you because she had no child of her own. Thus all the furies which dwell in the hearts of women were unleashed.” He made a despairing gesture. “The tide of hatred flowed and submerged me. I felt that my marriage was drifting to utter catastrophe and yet I possessed no power to save it. Your mother grew to hate and then to despise me. Her natural goodness was turned to a scorn that stung without stimulating. One day she threatened to leave me unless I ordered your aunt out of my house. Her anger and bitterness were terrible and for the moment they prevailed. I told my sister that a new arrangement was imperatively necessary. She took to her bed and became ill so that the doctor had to be summoned. He told me that she was very ill and that, if I persisted in my plan to make her leave her home, he would not be responsible for the consequences. By that time your mother’s anger had cooled and her generosity had asserted itself. Your aunt stayed; our marriage was wrecked.”

  He held up his hand, forbidding interruption.

  “At the moment when my wife’s body was carried into this room a chill of death struck my heart. I had heard the splash of her fall into the water. They laid her body on that couch.” He pointed to the piece of furniture and continued to keep his finger stretched towards it. “There were little pools of water on the floor and they grew bigger and became joined to each other. Water was running in thin streams from her hair and from her elbows, because they had crossed her arms on her breast. Angus and the men who had helped him to carry her up from the burn went away and left me here, alone with her. But I felt nothing…nothing but curiosity to watch the little streams and pools of water. I counted them; there were eleven streams and seven pools. Eleven and seven. Then I thought about the last moments we had spent together the night before, after the wounding of your aunt, and I repeated aloud what I had said to her: ‘You have killed my sister, you have ruined my life and my son’s life. There is only one thing left for you to do. It will be high tide at…’ Well, she had done it. But it seemed unreal and far away like something one has read about long ago and forgotten and remembered again. So I called to her to open her eyes…”

  His head shook, nodding assent, perhaps, to some remote voice of his spirit.

  “I thought: is she dead? And I kept repeating that word, ‘Dead’, over and over again so as to recall the meaning of it. But it had no meaning. Then it occurred to me, suddenly, that all the difficulties and troubles of my life were ended. If Mary got well, and the doctor expected her to get well, because the knife had missed her heart, we should have the house to ourselves again, as in the old days. You see, I had given my mind and my will wholly to my sister. It was with her eyes that I was looking at my wife’s dead face.” He plucked again at the neck of his gown. ‘‘Now I have no eyes but hers, for you, for this house, for our family. When I thought that Oonagh was a partner in Mary’s death I spoke the same words to her as I had spoken to your mother: ‘You have killed my sister…It will be high tide…’”

  “Stop, father!”

  Eoghan had jumped to his feet. He stood with quivering features and clenched fists. The old man bowed his head.

  “I ask your forgiveness.”

  “Why should you tell me this? Why should you tell me this?”

  Dr. Hailey saw a shudder pass over Duchlan’s body. The old man faced his son.

  “To give you back to your mother,” he said simply. “That is all that is left to me now; to give you back to your mother.”

  Duchlan rose as he spoke. Again he pointed to the couch.

  “I killed your mother; I would have killed your wife. What are these other crimes compared to my crime?”

  He walked to the couch and stood gazing down at it as if he saw his wife once more as he had seen her with the water dripping from her hair and her elbows. But his face expressed nothing. He had spoken the truth when he said that the chil
l of death was entered into his spirit. Eoghan followed him with horrified eyes until he left the room.

  Chapter XXXVI

  The Mask

  Dr. Hailey put his hand on Eoghan’s shoulder.

  “Have pity,” he said gently.

  “Pity?”

  The young man spoke the word mechanically as if its meaning had escaped him. He continued to gaze at the door through which his father had just passed.

  “For a mind in torment.”

  Eoghan turned suddenly and faced the doctor.

  “You call that a mind in torment?” he asked bitterly. He strode to the fireplace and stood looking down into the empty grate. Dr. Hailey followed him.

  “Men whose faces have been dreadfully disfigured,” he said, “are condemned to hide them behind a mask. It is the same when the disfigurement is spiritual.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When your father yielded his will to your aunt, he condemned himself to a punishment that is exacted in shame and despair. The only refuge of the weak is another’s strength. To escape from the hell of his own thoughts and feelings it was necessary that he should adopt completely and blindly those of your aunt. Moral cowardice has used that mask from the beginning. But the face behind the mask still lives.”

  “I see.”

  “Your mother found something to love in that weakness, remember. She allowed your aunt to stay here. She was even ready, perhaps, to endure the bitterness of that arrangement when illness deprived her, momentarily, of her reason. I feel sure she would have wished that you should not be less generous and forgiving. Your father is stricken because you had nothing to say to him. As you heard, he looks on these murders as supernatural occurrences, the expression of Heaven’s anger against himself. The man is utterly forsaken.”

  Dr. Hailey spoke in very gentle tones which were free of any suggestion of reproof. He added:

  “At least he didn’t spare himself.”

  Eoghan stood erect.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll go to him.”

  He strode out of the room. When he had gone, Dr. Hailey sat down and helped himself to snuff. He remained for some minutes with his eyes closed and then rose to his feet. He left the room and ascended the stairs, going as quietly as possible. When he reached the first landing he stood, listening. The house was silent. He began the second ascent, pausing every few steps. As he neared the top of the stairs he crouched down suddenly. A faint sound of voices had reached his ears.

  He waited for a few minutes and then completed his ascent. He could hear the voices distinctly now. They came from the nursery and he recognized Oonagh’s clear, well-bred accents. He hesitated for a moment and then decided to continue the enterprise which had brought him upstairs. He crossed the narrow landing and put his hand on the door of the pantry from the window of which he and Barley had examined the spike in the wall above Miss Gregor’s bedroom. He turned the handle and opened the door. At the same moment the nursery door was thrown open by Oonagh. She uttered a little cry of dismay and drew back a step. Then she recognized him.

  “Dr. Hailey! I…I thought it was…”

  She broke off and came towards him. He saw that she looked pale and strained but there was a new light of happiness in her eyes.

  “Hamish has been rather restless,” she said. “Christina and I have been trying to get him to sleep.”

  She led him into the nursery as she spoke. In spite of the heat of the weather there was a peep of fire burning in the grate and on this a kettle simmered. The room possessed an air of repose which affected him the more graciously in that it contrasted in so sharp a manner with the unease of the room he had just quitted. He walked to the cot and stood for a moment looking down at the sleeping child. Its small face had that flower-like quality which is childhood’s exclusive possession; its features expressed an exquisite gentleness. Christina joined him at the cot. She pointed to a number of small red spots on the child’s brow.

  “I think he’s had a little touch of the nettle rash,” she said in her soft accents.

  “Yes. That’s the real origin of his trouble.”

  Oonagh was standing at the fire.

  “You can’t think,” she exclaimed, “what a relief to me your view of his case has been. That was the one bright spot in all our troubles.”

  She crossed the room as she spoke.

  “Is there any light on the death of that poor man?”

  “None.” Dr. Hailey polished his eyeglass between his finger and thumb. “Were you here when his death occurred?” he asked in earnest tones.

  “Yes.”

  “The window was open?”

  She started and then nodded assent.

  “Did you hear anything?”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “It’s strange but I thought I heard a splash…two splashes.” She spoke with hesitation as if the sounds had troubled her.

  “Did you look out of the window?”

  Again he saw her start.

  “Yes, I did, after I heard the second splash.” A note of fear crept into her voice. “The moon was shining on the water where the burn flows into the loch. I saw a black thing, like a seal’s head, swimming down the burn, but when the moon struck it it flashed and glimmered.”

  ‘‘Like a fish’s body?”

  “Exactly like that.”

  The doctor put his eyeglass into his eye.

  “Other people saw the same object,” he stated in deliberate tones. “And put their own interpretations on it. What did you think it was?”

  “I couldn’t think what it was.”

  Dr. Hailey turned to the nurse.

  “Did you see it?”

  “No, sir, I was getting the baby’s milk at the time. But Mrs. Gregor told me about it.”

  “Has anything of the sort ever been seen here before?”

  “Not that I’ve ever heard, sir.”

  Christina’s hands were locked together. She kept wringing them. A lively fear had come into her eyes.

  “The fishermen do say,” she exclaimed in awe-struck tones, “that sometimes there be them that splashes round their boats at night.”

  “Yes?”

  “They will be afraid when they hear the splashing…”

  Dr. Hailey shrugged his shoulders.

  “Loch Fyne is full of porpoises, you know,” he said. “A school of porpoises can make a lot of noise.”

  The old woman did not answer. She continued to wring her hands and shake her head. He stood looking at her for a moment. His eyeglass fell.

  “One of the maids says that she heard a splash on the night when Inspector Dundas was killed. Did you hear anything that night?”

  “No, sir.”

  “The windows were open on that night also?”

  Christina assented. “I’ve kept them open,” she said, “ever since this spell of heat began.”

  Dr. Hailey walked to the window and stood looking out. The moon had travelled far since the time of Barley’s death but its light still fell on the water in intermittent gleams as clouds, newly come from the west, moved across its face.

  “One ought to hear a splash from any of these windows,” he commented in tones which seemed to carry a rebuke. He turned back to face the occupants of the room. “The weather seems to be breaking. I thought this heat could not last much longer.”

  Again he surveyed the water. His face was troubled as if some important decision was toward in his mind. It seemed that he was in doubt how to explain himself because he frowned several times. At last he left the window and returned to Oonagh.

  “That splash may be more important than you suppose,” he said in guarded tones. “I feel that we ought to know everything about it that can possibly be known.”

  He paused. The girl’s clear eyes looked into h
is. She shook her head.

  “I felt dreadfully afraid,” she confessed, “when I heard the splashes. It was a strange, eerie sound at that hour of the night. But perhaps my nerves were overwrought because of what was happening.”

  She made a little gesture of apology for herself, adding: “When one knows there is a policeman waiting at the foot of the stairs.”

  “The other people who heard the splashes were terrified so that they wanted to leave the house.”

  She shook her head again. “I think I would have felt the same wish myself in other circumstances.” He saw her glance at the cot as she spoke. Her eyes filled with tears and she turned away.

  “You can help me,” he told her gently, “by listening again during the next few minutes. I’m going downstairs to carry out an experiment, the results of which may or may not clear up this horrible business.” He paused and considered for a few moments. “The points I wish to determine,” he resumed, “are these: can you hear doors and windows being opened; can you hear every splash at the mouth of the burn; are small objects on the surface of the water clearly visible from these windows? I won’t explain myself further because I want your judgement to be unbiased, but I will tell you that I mean to go out of the house by the french-windows in the little writing-room. I shall cough rather loudly just before I come out of the room and I wish specially that you will listen for this cough. A splash will follow, perhaps several splashes.”

  He watched Oonagh closely as he outlined this programme. She showed no sign of any deeper interest in it than the facts warranted.

  “There is one other point. I want these observations made in this room. Can I therefore ask you to remain in this room until I come back?”

  He had emphasized the words “in this room” each time that he spoke them. He saw a look of surprise in her face but she offered no comment.

  “I shall not leave this room,” she said, “until you come back. Do you wish me to stand here or beside the window?”

  “Here at first. If you hear a splash go to the window at once and watch the mouth of the burn.”