She got up from the table in the public library near Leicester Square, where she had found herself after leaving Aces La Rue, and returned the directory to its place, and took up Who’s Who for the current year. She read Dr. Morelle’s Christian names, but there was no date, place or details of his birth given. Educated: Sorbonne, Rome, Vienna, she read. M.D. Berne, 1923 (for further details of career as medical practitioner see Medical Directory — current year): Lecturer on medico-psychological aspects of criminology to New York Police Bureau, 1934; Lecturer and medico-psychiat. to police bureaux and criminological authorities of Geneva, Rome, Milan and Paris, 1935–1937. Published miscellaneous papers on medical and scientific subjects (see Medical Directory — current year). Writings for journals include: ‘Auguste Dupin versus Sherlock Holmes — A Study in Ratiocination,’ London Archive & Atlantic Weekly, 1931; ‘The Criminal versus Society,’ English Note-book, Le Temps Moderne & New York Letter, 1933; and further publications on allied subjects up to the current year; etc., etc. Address: 221B Harley Street, London, W.1. Recreations: Criminology and fencing. European fencing champion (Epee) Switzerland, 1927–28–29. Clubs: None.
Returning thoughtfully to the flat in Charlotte Street, Thelma Grayson remembered a glossy magazine she had once read which carried an article about Dr. Morelle. She found the magazine, it was a year old, and turned the pages, until she came to the article again.
‘Not to have compiled a case-book would have been unusual in any practising medical man,’ Thelma read, ‘the recording of particulars relative to his patients being a mere matter of routine. When one regards Dr. Morelle as somewhat above the average physician, the inclination is to expect that during such a wide and singularly varied career he must have compiled fairly extensive case-books and of more than ordinary interest.
‘In fact his case-histories run into several volumes. In them is recorded in his characteristically neat and meticulous handwriting the minute and precise details of every case with which he has been associated.
‘To say they make an intriguing contribution to the study of human nature could hardly be described as an overstatement. From the moment he began his career as a medical practitioner, Dr. Morelle has concerned himself only with the unusual, the bizarre. In these pages are crystallized all the frailties and foibles, the ever-insoluble mystery of the human mind and soul. Each case it seems adds yet another chapter to the remarkable history of human, inhuman or subhuman conduct. Therein is set down the illuminating if somewhat disturbing glimpses into such subterranean twistings of the brain, such tortuous writhings of the spirit as pass belief.
‘Professional ethics apart Dr. Morelle has, of course, no desire that his memoirs shall remain other than secret. They are recorded purely for the study of medical colleagues, other men of science and anthropologists, to whom, as he is far from unaware, they are of inestimable value. There are other reasons besides why his memoirs may not be the subject of public scrutiny. In a number of cases those involved have been personages of importance, some of whom are still alive. In one or two instances political issues were involved, there were men in high places who entrusted Dr. Morelle with the safety of their honour and careers, so they might be disentangled from the sinister skeins in which they were caught. His integrity, they knew, was never in doubt.
‘Again there are other cases whose publications to the world at large would bring distress to those persons still living who had been, indirectly or directly, implicated. And while Dr. Morelle’s attitude towards his fellow-creatures is perhaps more accurately described as one of benign contempt, at no time has he sought deliberately to do harm to someone defenceless and unable to retaliate . . .’
At about this time the subject of the article Thelma Grayson was poring over was making his way along Chelsea Embankment, returning to Harley Street. Dr. Morelle had just enjoyed a cup of tea with Sir Burton Muir, the eminent Q.C., in his house overlooking the river. As he strolled along in the pale light of early evening, his sword-stick rapping sharply on the pavement, Dr. Morelle’s mind went back to another occasion when he had walked back from Sir Burton’s house, the occasion of his very first meeting with Miss Frayle.
It must have been all of four years ago, Dr. Morelle was deciding, and he could not repress a faint sigh at the way time went past. It seemed only yesterday, a late hour one moonless and rather misty night when he had been proceeding somewhat briskly along Chelsea Embankment. He had just left his old friend and a small party. It had been a pleasurable evening, good food excellently cooked and served, good wine; together with a flow of conversation befitting the intellect of Sir Burton and his guests, eminent in the fields of medicine and law. Dr. Morelle had as was his habit made brilliant contributions to each various topic of discussion, scoring points with his sardonic shafts of humour. He had left before the others, having in mind some work awaiting him unfinished in his laboratory at Harley Street. Now having decided to take a little exercise before ultimately hailing a taxi he was walking quickly along the Embankment in the direction of Chelsea Bridge.
Somewhere down-river a ship’s siren had hooted mournfully and the Thames running past was dark and forbidding. The mist swirled chill and raw across the Embankment which seemed quite deserted. But as he strode on, his mind full of the research problems with which he presently proposed to grapple, Dr. Morelle passed a young woman leaning against the parapet. He might not have noticed her, so insignificant a figure she made, but something, a certain tenseness about her attitude caused him to throw her a passing glance.
A few paces on he paused to light a cigarette. As he flicked a flame against the tip of his Le Sphinx he glanced back, and snapping the cap of his lighter into place swiftly retraced his steps.
‘You know,’ he said to the young woman, and his tone was level and charged with a sardonic quirk, ‘I don’t think I should.’
She gave a startled gasp. His swift and noiseless approach had taken her utterly unawares. He regarded her. She was small and slim, pathetic in her shabby clothes, and she stared up at him wide-eyed through horn-rimmed spectacles which were perched awry on her nose. The look of desperation in her face gave way now to one of forlorn misery and wretchedness.
‘Drowning’s a cold and dismal affair only a fool would choose,’ he said to her, his eyes glittering with inner amusement.
‘I’m not going to —’
Her protest fading into a broken whisper, she turned away to stare down at the dark waters. Unmoved, he watched the tear-trickle run down her nose and splash onto the parapet. She said: ‘Please — please leave me alone.’
He had no intention of acceding to her request until his curiosity had been satisfied. Insinuatingly he had said: ‘Should I — er — call a policeman?’
Her face jerked up to him in terror. ‘No. Oh, don’t.’
‘Very well. But in return you must tell me something. Who are you?’
She had answered him hesitantly: ‘My name is Frayle — Miss Frayle.’
‘And what, Miss Frayle,’ and now he smiled thinly, ‘apart from contemplating putting an end to your life, do you do?’
‘I’m’ — she corrected herself with a little shudder — ‘I was a secretary-companion.’
‘Your employer I presume having dispensed with your services?’
There had been a brief pause, and the reply was a whisper he had only just caught. ‘She’s dead.’
She began to dab her face with her handkerchief and blow her nose. Now she spoke hurriedly, blurting out the words as if anxious to get rid of them: ‘I went out just now to post the letters — I do every evening — and when I came back I found her.’
He cut in quickly, deceptively soft-voiced. ‘What happened then?’
‘I — I lost my head. The way she looked. It was horrible.’ She was shuddering violently, her face contorted at the remembered horror. ‘I rushed from the flat.’
‘Without waiting to call a doctor, or inform the police?’
‘You don’t understand
. They’ll say I did it — she was always telling people — her friends — that I hated her, I wanted to see her dead.’ She broke off, adding pathetically: ‘She wasn’t very nice sometimes.’
‘Supposing Miss Frayle,’ he had said, ‘you and I go back to the flat together?’
‘I can’t — I couldn’t face it.’
He surveyed the glowing tip of his cigarette. Without looking at her, without raising his voice: ‘I think it would be better for you if you did as I say.’ And glancing at the mist swirling about them, he gave a somewhat over-elaborate shiver. ‘Besides, I am finding it a little chilly.’
‘I won’t go back.’ Her voice rose stubbornly. ‘You can’t make me.’
But, of course, she had been as wax in his hands. After all, Miss Frayle had told herself at the time, as she glanced up at his saturnine face shadowed by his soft black hat, he had said he was a doctor. Perhaps he really was. But with sinking heart she had been forced to admit he was like no other doctor she had ever met. Nothing kindly and gentle about him. This tall and gaunt, almost sinister figure with the sardonic smile and penetrating, mesmeric eyes.
Which was how Dr. Morelle had come to solve the mystery of the death of Miss Frayle’s employer, and how Miss Frayle had found a new employer in Dr. Morelle. She had not remained in his employ ever since that fateful night of their first encounter. She had not found him easy exactly to get along with, nor had he found that she added up to the requirements he demanded for a secretary to the fullest extent. Far from it. But then Dr. Morelle’s requirements were inclined to be somewhat exacting, and it was very doubtful if any human being existed who could have filled them.
And so Miss Frayle had a couple of times departed to other jobs, leaving Dr. Morelle in a state of mingled thankfulness and unease at what the future might hold for him in the shape of the next young woman to fill her place. In every case, though he would be the last to concede it, his most pessimistic apprehensions had been realized, and he had wished desperately that Miss Frayle, for all her flutterings and follies, her timorousness and her ingenuousness was back with him once more. Not that he would have admitted that to anyone, either. Certainly not to Miss Frayle, and hardly to himself.
And so this evening, as he paid off his taxi at the door of 221B Harley Street, he was filled with a sense of satisfaction that Miss Frayle was back with him once more. As he made his way to his study, where he knew she would be engaged upon some work for him, he decided that there was about her quite a quality of eagerness and refreshing enthusiasm, and that he must remember to resist those moments when she aroused him to bitter anger and sarcasm on account of some error of judgment she had committed, due merely to her excitably sanguine nature.
Miss Frayle was, in fact, bent over a batch of notes which she was filing, as he went into the study, and after idly watching her for a moment, he picked up the telephone and dialled.
‘Hood,’ he said presently, when the detective-inspector’s voice answered him, ‘Dr. Morelle speaking.’
‘Inquest tomorrow, Doctor,’ said Hood promptly. ‘At Westminster Coroner’s Court. I was about to ring you to ask you if you’d meet me there.’
‘You will need formal evidence of my examination of the deceased?’ Dr. Morelle said as he scribbled the time on his notepad. Then he went on: ‘The p.m. reveal anything new?’
‘We got the bullet out of him,’ Hood said. ‘Bernardelli .25, it was. Ballistics checked it was the same as the automatic found beside him. Only prints on the gun were Mercury’s,’ he added.
‘Seems conclusive,’ Dr. Morelle said thoughtfully. ‘The note?’
There was a short pause, and then: ‘His finger-prints were on it, as well as several others, including mine. Handwriting appears to be his. Let me put it to you this way,’ Hood said. ‘We’re satisfied it’s open-and-closed.’
Hanging-up, Dr. Morelle sat for a moment, finger-tips together, and deep in thought. He glanced at Miss Frayle.
‘Did you form any opinion of the handwriting on Mercury’s farewell-note?’ he asked.
Miss Frayle did not look up from the work which was absorbing her attention. ‘It was rather a scrawly sort of writing,’ she said. ‘And it looked rather shaky, as if he’d been in a hurry, I suppose.’
She broke off and looked at him as the front-doorbell rang. She eyed the clock on the writing-desk. It was a little late for consulting-hours, though, of course, Dr. Morelle’s practice was not like that of the usual Harley Street physician. She had known the doorbell to ring announcing a caller for Dr. Morelle at an hour after midnight on more than one occasion. Even so, her pulse quickened with curiosity, as she hurried off to see who this caller might prove to be.
Dr. Morelle casually took a Le Sphinx from the human skull on his writing-desk which served somewhat ostentatiously as a cigarette-box, and lit it. Miss Frayle was back in a few moments, her eyes behind her horn-rims gleaming excitedly. She was evidently in a high state of excitement, and Dr. Morelle regarded her a trifle coldly.
‘Do you know who it is? You’ll never guess,’ she said breathlessly.
‘My dear Miss Frayle,’ he said, through a cloud of cigarette smoke, ‘how should I know if I know, when I haven’t yet see our visitor?’
‘But that’s just it, Dr. Morelle, you have seen her. It’s that young woman,’ she said, ‘the one we saw the other night, in the cemetery.’
Chapter Fourteen
In a swift glance Dr. Morelle had taken in his visitor’s shadowed eyes, her pale face, with only a trace of makeup, and the way in which her hands clenched together convulsively as she sat down. ‘You are the sister of the girl who died at Little Tiplow,’ he said quietly. ‘We have in fact seen each other before.’ Her eyes were clouded, baffled pools. ‘It was in the cemetery there,’ Dr. Morelle said.
She stared at him, that recollection of the encounter night in the cemetery returned to her; she recalled the tall man and the fussy, smaller woman appearing out of the darkness as she was at Julie’s graveside. She looked from Dr. Morelle to Miss Frayle: it was they who had been there, it was Dr. Morelle’s torchlight which had been directed upon her. She murmured something about it being a strange coincidence.
Quickly Miss Frayle said something about it being a remarkable coincidence, that it was a small world, and then she went on to explain the reason for Dr. Morelle’s and her presence in the cemetery. Dr. Morelle interrupted the glance Thelma Grayson was giving Miss Frayle.
‘Anything you have to say to me can quite well be said in Miss Frayle’s hearing,’ he said quietly. ‘It will be treated in the strictest confidence,’ he smiled slightly, ‘just imagine you are talking to your family doctor.’
‘You may wish to — to — tell the police what I am going to tell you,’ she said.
‘Indeed?’ Dr. Morelle was looking at her with composed interest, as if encouraging her to proceed with her story. Miss Frayle’s pencil had dropped and rolled on the floor. Dr. Morelle glanced across at her sharply, and she blushed as she bent to pick it up.
‘Before you give me the facts, Miss Grayson,’ he said, ‘perhaps you will tell me what made you decide to come to me?’
‘I didn’t know which way to turn,’ Thelma Grayson burst out. ‘I was at my wit’s end,’ she said. ‘Then I remembered Aces La Rue. I knew him when my sister and I worked at the Black Moth.’
Her words came out in a rush.
‘Aces La Rue,’ Dr. Morelle said, an eyebrow raised at her quizzically.
‘He does a card-act at the club,’ she said. ‘My sister and I were on friendly terms with him. We both thought he was so worldly-wise, so knowledgeable about life; and then when this terrible thing happened, and I was absolutely shocked and stunned, I remembered him.’
‘He and I are not entirely unacquainted,’ Dr. Morelle said, and he smiled reminiscently to himself.
‘He told me you were the only person he could think of who might help me,’ she said.
‘I’m sure that was most flattering o
f him,’ he said simply.
She hesitated, looking at him in almost agonized intensity. She gazed down at her hands, then glanced round the study, shadowy in the corners, and its walls book-lined. Then, at last, she turned to him again.
‘Dr. Morelle, the newspapers are saying that Ray Mercury committed suicide last night in the Black Moth, but I know that it can’t be true. It is impossible, because I went to the club last night, and shot him myself.’
As she uttered this rush of words, Miss Frayle was staring across at her, her eyes saucer-wide behind her horn-rimmed spectacles. Her mouth was open in astonishment, and her hands clutching at her notebook and pencil were shaking violently.
Dr. Morelle leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands together over his crossed legs. During the years he had heard many strange confessions in his shadowy study, but he could not recall a beautiful woman coming to him to tell him that a suicide was not a suicide at all, but a murder, and one she had herself perpetrated.
He studied Thelma Grayson through narrowed eyes. Her own gaze was fixed on his gaunt face. ‘Let us be quite clear on one point, Miss Grayson,’ he said. ‘Do you mean this was,’ he paused, ‘some sort of an accident? That you and he struggled perhaps, and the gun went off?’
She said, almost in a whisper: ‘I went there with the deliberate intention of killing him. I got this mad idea, which seized me like an obsession, so that I could think of nothing except revenge.’
‘There are reasons,’ Dr. Morelle said, ‘into which I will not go now, which incline me to listen further to what you have to say. I have promised you that this is to be a strictly confidential interview, and so,’ the faint smile he gave her had a curious warmth about it, it was a smile inviting her to reveal her closest secrets to him, and she took heart, ‘continue with your story.’
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