by Ellery Queen
“We’ve got to do something,” Marcia said. “Stephen persists in the crazy notion that he’s responsible for Bob’s falling. He’s quite out of his head. He even talked about having tried to murder me.”
“The doctor’ll give him something to make him sleep,” Walsh said.
“But he isn’t!” Marcia protested. “He seems to be encouraging Stephen to talk this crazy way.”
The doctor was somewhere in the shadow, out of the range of the light on the desk. Somehow it made it easier for Stephen to talk without seeing the doctor’s face. He managed to light a fresh cigarette after wasting several matches. Then he began. The words came falteringly at first, and then in an increasing rush.
“It’s hard to know where the starting point is,” he said. “I fainted one day as I was leaving my office. I’m president of Drake Aircraft. I put it down to the heat, or maybe a shrimp salad I’d had in the cafeteria for lunch. When I got home Marcia insisted I send for Bristow.
“He took a serious view of it. Said I’d stretched my endurance to the limit and if I didn’t rest and follow orders I was going to be good and sick. I made arrangements at the plant and then I gave up. I didn’t realize how all-in I was till I quit working.
“Everybody was swell to me. I had eggnogs, and sat around in the sun and really enjoyed myself. Marcia’s aunt and her brother Ted live here with us. Bob came in to see me every day and I seemed to be getting along fine.”
He paused to inhale on his cigarette. The doctor had taken a place near the window and was looking out over the moonlit garden, almost as if he weren’t hearing. Stephen couldn’t see him in the gloom. He knocked the ash from his cigarette and went on. His voice began to be unsteady.
“It was Sunday morning. . .two weeks ago. We usually have breakfast on the terrace if the weather’s fine. People drop in—like Bob, or Mike Cleghorn, an artist who lives next door, or other friends. That day it was Mike. After breakfast Marcia and Ted had planned to take two of the horses down to the jumping ring in the lower field for a workout. Cleg and I walked to the stable with them.
“I don’t know why, but I didn’t feel as well as I had for the last few days. I had a funny, pounding sensation at my temples. When we got to the stable George Meadows, the stableboy, brought out the two horses Ted and Marcia were going to ride. I was standing by Marcia’s horse. She and Cleg were behind me, laughing together about something. Instinctively I lifted the saddle flap to see if everything was all right.”
Stephen stopped. It seemed to be getting harder for him to speak.
“Go on, Mr. Drake,” the doctor said quietly.
“I—I had the strangest kind of detached feeling, Doctor. I was looking at the girth and the buckles yet I didn’t seem to know why I was looking at them. You know the feeling when you go into a room to get something and then can’t remember what it is you’re after?”
“Yes.”
“Suddenly it all seemed to come into clear focus. It was a folded, leather girth and the stitching near the buckles was ripped loose. It was just held together by a fragment of the stitching. At the first fence I knew it would give way. I stood there, with the saddle flap raised, staring at the girth. My hands were damp and cold—like they are now. That thumping was going on inside my head.
“‘Is it all right, darling?’” Marcia asked from behind me.
“My mouth was dry and cottony. Some powerful force urged me to lower the flap, to say that it was all right, to let her ride down to the ring. I could see her galloping toward the first fence; I could see the big, gray hunter take off for the jump; I could see the girth give way and Marcia fall. She was lying on the turf and the iron-shod hoofs of the horse were coming straight down on her.” The recollection of that vision stopped Stephen again.
“What did you do, Mr. Drake?” the Doctor asked.
Stephen let out his breath in a long sigh. “I called George. I pointed to the girth. Then I stumblingly went back along the path to the house. It was incredible, Doctor, but for a few seconds there I had been coldly, calculatingly considering the possibility of a fatal accident to Marcia. To have let her ride out on that faulty saddle would have been murder. And I actually thought of doing it! Only for seconds—but in those seconds it had seemed like an attractive idea.”
The doctor made no comment. He sat looking out at the garden. After a long time Stephen went on.
“You’d have to know Marcia and me better, Doctor, to know how monstrous that idea was to me. I love her. She’s my whole life. When we had to be apart for any reason I was miserable. If she was ever late for an appointment I’d get in a dither.”
“Under the wheels of trucks,” Dr. Smith said.
“What?” Stephen sounded startled.
“I said ‘Under the wheels of trucks.’”
“How did you know?” Stephen asked.
“It’s a common thing, Mr. Drake. You have an appointment with someone you love; they’re late; so you begin to imagine that something’s happened. Usually you imagine it’s an accident. Was that how you felt?”
“Yes,” Stephen said. His voice was very low. “I’d imagine she’d been in a taxi smashup, or, as you said, run over by a truck, or that there’d been a train wreck, if she was coming by train.”
“Go on, Mr. Drake.”
“Is all this so very odd, Doctor? Don’t other people worry about someone they love?”
“It’s not odd,” the doctor said. “People worry.”
“Well, after that business with the girth I was pretty sunk for a few days. Somehow I couldn’t tell anyone about it. Bristow saw I’d had a setback, but I couldn’t tell him about it. I kept twisting it around in my mind, wondering if I’d really meant to do it. But I hadn’t done it. I managed to convince myself that it was all a fantasy—the result of being overtired and nervously keyed up. Then it happened again.”
Stephen twisted and turned in his chair, tried to light another cigarette, and failed completely this time.
“About a week later I drove into town. I was driving for the first time since I’d been sick. Suddenly I noticed Marcia on the road ahead. Her back was to me. She was walking in the same direction we were going. She has a distinctive sort of swinging gait. Yippee, her spaniel, was galloping along ahead of her.
“Suddenly I felt that curious throbbing sensation inside my head. The road, the countryside, the figure of Marcia, seemed to blend into a kind of mist. I realized I was gripping the wheel of the car hard. Without any very clear thought I began easing the car over toward the right-hand side of the road. My foot pressed down on the accelerator and the car gathered speed.
“Inch by inch, I turned the car in Marcia’s direction until it was headed straight for her. The little nickel-plated figure on the radiator cap was aimed straight at her shoulder blades. There was a strange roaring sound in my ears, like a wind rushing past. I was almost on top of her now—fifteen yards—ten yards—faster—faster—”
Stephen’s voice broke and he dropped his head forward on his arms. His whole body shook.
“Go on, Mr. Drake.” The doctor’s voice was totally without emotion.
After a moment Stephen lifted his head and went on. “Well, suddenly the fog was gone; the picture was clear. I wrenched the wheel to the left. I got a glimpse of Marcia’s startled face as I swept by her, spraying gravel. I jammed on the brake and brought the car to a stop.
“I just sat there, gripping the wheel, that pulse hammering in my head. I was drenched with sweat. Marcia came up beside the car, grinning.
“‘Is that what you call “once over lightly” when you go to the barber?’ she asked. She opened the door of the car, whistled to Yippee, and they both got in. ‘Home, James,’ she said. She didn’t dream of what had so nearly happened.”
The room was silent. The doctor evidently meant to make no comment. Stephen leaned back in his chair and pressed the tips of his fingers against his temples.
“The next twenty-four hours were the worst I ever sp
ent,” he said. “The experience on the road kept rolling over and over in my mind like an endlessly revolving mill wheel. I kept trying to explain it away. I remembered that explanation for the feeling people sometimes have in a strange place or strange situation—the feeling that they’ve been there before. It’s supposed to be a momentary blackout of consciousness. You see the place, there is a blackout for a fraction of a second, and then you see it again. . .and it seems as though you must have been there before. It wasn’t any good. That hadn’t happened to me.
“I tried to explain it in terms of falling asleep for an instant. I’d done it driving at night and found myself over on the side of the road. But that hadn’t happened either. There wasn’t any escape from the truth. For a moment I’d meant to kill her.”
“But didn’t,” the doctor said. “Go on.”
“The worst part of it was that I suddenly felt separated from Marcia. I wanted to be with her, but I was afraid that something might go wrong again. I’d caught myself in the pattern twice. I kept staring at myself in the mirror to see if I looked the same. I thought I sensed a tension in the family’s attitude toward me—as if they knew. It was just plain hell, Dr. Smith.”
“But that wasn’t the end of it?”
“No.”
“You didn’t tell Bristow?”
“Not then. You see I kept trying to explain it away to myself. After all I hadn’t let her ride the horse, had I? I hadn’t run her down in the car. It was all probably the result of being overtired, I kept telling myself.
“So, very slowly, like someone learning to walk again, after an injury to his legs, I began to feel my way back to normal.” Stephen laughed. “God, that was certainly a fool’s paradise.”
The doctor remained silent.
“About four days ago, Doctor, Marcia wasn’t feeling well. She had an upset stomach. She went to bed late in the afternoon. Cleg came over for dinner that night and he and Ted and Harriet and I had a pleasant evening. I went up to bed about ten. I was supposed to get plenty of sleep.
“When I got upstairs Marcia asked me if I’d go to the bathroom and get her some bicarbonate of soda. Of course I went. I opened the medicine cabinet. The soda is kept in a glass jar on the middle shelf. Marcia always empties it into the jar from its original package. I reached for the jar, took two teaspoons of the white powder, dumped them into a glass of water, and began stirring them. I put the jar back on the shelf. I turned and started for the bedroom.”
Stephen’s voice began to shake. “I’d only taken a couple of steps when I realized that it wasn’t soda—that I’d seen clearly the large POISON label on the jar. That I’d gone right ahead as though—as though I hadn’t seen it. I dropped the glass and it smashed into bits on the bathroom tiles. I’d caught myself again, Dr. Smith.”
“What was poison doing in the soda jar?” Dr. Smith asked.
“It wasn’t the soda jar. It was one just like it. Marcia had handled some poisoned parsnip while she was working in the garden. This stuff was used to make a skin lotion. Bristow warned us it was deadly if taken internally. Marcia put it in a jar like the soda jar, but she marked it clearly, and it was kept on the top shelf, out of reach, where no one could get at it by accident.”
“Who put it in the soda jar’s place?”
“We’ve been having a general house cleaning, Dr. Smith. A woman from the village, a Mrs. Lilley, had been helping our own maids. She evidently cleaned the medicine cabinet. I suppose she didn’t remember which bottle went where. But you see what it meant to me? I’ve been prepared to take advantage of any opportunity to do Marcia harm.”
“That’s open to argument,” the doctor said. He got up and came over to the desk. His square, undistinguished fingers rested on the edge of the desk. “Did you finally tell Bristow?”
Stephen nodded. “The next day. He asked me the same question you did about the soda jar. He didn’t seem to take it very seriously. God, if he only had, he might be alive now.”
“Perhaps,” Dr. Smith said. “Perhaps not. What happened tonight?”
Stephen fumbled with a match for a new cigarette. The doctor quietly lit one and held it for him.
“You know about the Conroy child?” Stephen asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, Bob and Mike Cleghorn were here late this afternoon for a drink. Marcia came back from a meeting with the news about the boy. A little later Ted, who’d been on a long ride, turned up. When he heard about the boy he said he’d seen a kid over near Lookout Trail. He wasn’t sure whether it was the Conroy kid or not. I know that trail, Doctor. We climbed it hundreds of times when we were kids. At the top of the trail are the ledges. They’re dangerous, particularly at night. I thought we ought to go look for the boy. We all went in the car—the whole family plus Mike Cleghorn and Bob.”
“Yes?”
“We left the car at the foot of the trail and started up, calling to the boy. There are several secondary paths and we split up, each taking different ways. Finally we all met on the ledges. There was no trace of the boy.” He stopped, his hands clenched on the desk in front of him.
“What happened then, Mr. Drake?”
“Well, there was no point in staying there. We decided to take a short cut down. It’s a narrow, steep path. You have to walk it single file. We were all gathered at the head of the path when it happened.”
“What happened?”
“Bob went over.”
“What did you have to do with it?”
“I must have pushed him.”
“You must have pushed him!” The doctor’s voice was suddenly sharp. “Don’t you know?”
Stephen shook his head wearily. “As he was falling he said, ‘Stephen, what have you done?’”
“What! The man was falling and he said that to you?”
Stephen nodded.
“Didn’t he cry out?”
“After that he screamed.”
“But before he screamed, and while he was falling, he said to you, ‘Stephen, what have you done?’”
“Yes.”
The doctor turned and walked over to the French windows. He stood there a moment and then came back. The desk light showed a curious brightness in his eyes. “Did you have the same symptoms, Mr. Drake? Throbbing in the temples? Things fading into a mist?”
“I don’t remember them.”
“And why did you push him? What motive did you have?”
“None. But there was no motive to harm Marcia.”
“And you’re positive he spoke those words to you?”
“I’ll go on hearing them as long as I live,” Stephen said.
Again the doctor walked the length of the room and back. He stopped in front of the desk facing Stephen. “I don’t believe a word of it, Mr. Drake,” he said.
Stephen pulled himself up out of his chair. “But, Doctor, I tell you I—”
“I don’t mean I think you’re lying, Mr. Drake. I mean I don’t think you pushed him. I don’t think he said those words to you. And I don’t think you would have harmed your wife.”
A pathetically eager look came into Stephen’s face. “Then you think it was an accident?” he asked.
“No.” Dr. Smith said. “I think it was murder.”
Stephen lowered himself back into his chair. He was staring at the doctor with a kind of hurt bewilderment, as if he thought the small gray man was playing games with him.
“There’s a good deal of the story you haven’t told, Stephen,” the doctor said. He used the first name, simply, casually.
“But I’ve told you everything.”
“Not really. But we’re not going to go into it tonight. There are other things I have to know before we can make sense out of this. I’m going to give you a sedative so you can sleep. In the morning we’ll see where we’re at.”
“There’s no explanation for it except that something’s given way in my mind, Doctor,” Stephen said.
“I’m afraid I can’t agree with you, Stephen. There
are several other explanations. The problem is to find the right one.”
The doctor had brought his bag from the car. It was on a chair by the door. He opened it and took a bottle of tablets from it. “Take two of these, Stephen. You’ll sleep. Don’t try talking to anyone tonight.”
Stephen took the tablets, got to his feet once more, and moved slowly to the door. “You’re not making it easier by telling me that I’m all right, Dr. Smith. Because, you see, I know I’m not.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t sick, Stephen,” the doctor said. “I said I couldn’t agree that there was anything wrong with your mind.”
“I don’t understand, Doctor.”
“Get some sleep,” the doctor said. “You’re too tired to understand.”
The doctor stayed in the study for some time by himself. He walked back to the window and stood there, looking out. Evidently he wasn’t visible from the door, for when Walsh appeared he looked in and was about to turn away when the doctor spoke to him.
“I didn’t see you there, Dr. Smith,” Walsh said. He came across and sat down beside the doctor. He lit a cigarette and inhaled contentedly. “I guess you got Stephen talked out of his crazy notion?”
“What crazy notion?”
“That he pushed Dr. Bristow off the ledges.”
“I tried to. I don’t think I was too successful.”
“Well, it’s a closed case,” Walsh said. “A damned unfortunate accident.”
“I don’t agree, Captain,” the Doctor said.
“What do you mean?”
“Bristow was murdered.”
“Doctor! You’re off your nut!” Walsh said. “You don’t mean Stephen sold you that bill of goods?”
“No.”
“Then what do you mean, Bob was murdered?”
“It’s a simple Anglo-Saxon word, Captain. I mean someone pushed him off the ledge. But not Stephen. Stephen was meant to think he had.”
Walsh just sat there in amazed silence. “Do you feel all right, Doctor?” he asked finally. “Who do you think did push him?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea. Not yet.”