by Ellery Queen
Walsh laughed. “I’m afraid I can’t go along with you, Doctor. Where’s your evidence?”
“Evidence?” the doctor turned his gray eyes out toward the garden. “If you mean physical clues, Captain, I haven’t any. No cigar butts or fingerprints or blunt instruments. And Bristow’s body won’t tell you anything. It’s broken to pieces.”
“Then what is your evidence?”
“The unconscious testimony of a disturbed mind, Captain Walsh.”
“For God’s sake, Doctor!”
“Not in your line, is it. Captain? Well, it happens to be my profession, the study of disturbed minds. I want to tell you a story. Stephen Drake’s story. See what you make of it.”
The doctor began retelling the story he’d heard. Somehow his monotonous, lifeless voice actually added tension to the telling in the semidarkness. He told about the saddle girth, the car, the poison jar. When he has finished this part of the story Walsh whistled.
“Boy, he’s worse off than I thought! Maybe he has gone nuts!”
“I want to tell you his story of what happened tonight. It will be interesting to see if it checks against what the others told you.”
He told Stephen’s version of how they’d started out, how they’d climbed the trail, separating on the way, and finally joined on the ledges. He told how they’d decided on the shortcut down, the gathering at the head of the path, and Bristow’s fall.
“That’s exactly what they told me,” Walsh said.
“Is that all they told you?”
“What else is there?”
“Only that Stephen says Bristow spoke to him as he was falling. Did none of the rest of them hear him?”
“They didn’t mention it,” Walsh said. “Bob spoke to him?”
“He said ‘Stephen, what have you done?’”
“Now wait a minute, Doctor! Bob said that to Stephen?”
“As he was falling,” the Doctor said dryly. “Try to picture it, Captain. Stephen pushed Bristow. I can imagine the doctor saying ‘Stephen, stop!’ or ‘Stephen, what are you doing?’ I can’t imagine his saying ‘Stephen, what have you done?’ as he fell. But that’s just an oddity. Captain. It’s not evidence. However, if someone wanted Stephen to think, in his disturbed and overwrought condition, that he had pushed Bristow, saying ‘Stephen, what have you done?’ would implant the idea in his mind, wouldn’t it?”
“I suppose it might. But—”
“That’s what happened, Captain. Someone else said it, and Stephen, in his confused state, thought it was Bristow.”
“That’s just guesswork, Doctor!”
“But accurate, I suspect.”
“I’m afraid, Doctor, this whole thing is too fancy for me.”
The doctor walked over to the desk. He picked up a round glass paperweight and showed it to Walsh. “What does this make you think of, Walsh?”
“Why, papers, bills, things that might blow around.”
“Exactly. But suppose you were thinking of murdering me. Mightn’t this heavy glass paperweight look to you like a weapon? You could crush my skull with it.”
“Sure, I suppose I might think of it that way,” Walsh said.
“What I’m getting at is this, Walsh. If you saw a ripped saddle girth you wouldn’t think of it as a murder weapon, would you? Nor do you think of your car as a murder weapon. Nor would you think of skin lotion as a murder weapon. Not under ordinary conditions.”
“Of course I wouldn’t.”
“But Stephen Drake did!” the doctor said. “That can only mean an impulse toward violence was there. He saw the girth, the car, the poison bottle, as instruments for murder.”
“God, he must really be batty!” Walsh said. “But if he is, then maybe he did push Bristow.”
“I doubt it. I’ve got to know a lot more about him than I know now, but I doubt it. Captain, we all have certain associations or experiences that turn loose in us impulses toward violence—sometimes directed against persons we love. We usually conceal these impulses from ourselves or control them. It’s like a volcano in the mind. Fortunately, these associations or experiences don’t take place often enough to jeopardize our control. If they did, the volcano would erupt and blow us to kingdom come. I think that’s what’s been happening to Stephen.”
“I don’t get it,” Walsh said.
“I think he’s been subjected to some kind of pressure that’s been driving him along the path toward murder,” Dr. Smith said. “But I don’t think this pressure is there by accident. Somewhere in his past are experiences that evoke violent and aggressive impulses toward his wife. I think someone has been calmly and deliberately playing on this neurotic weakness of his. That weakness has been accentuated by his physical breakdown. I think someone has been trying to drive him to murder Mrs. Drake.”
“Dr. Smith! Do you realize what you’re saying?”
“Perfectly, Captain. I’m saying that someone in his household, or some close friend who knows the whole past history of his association with his wife, had been using that knowledge to bring about a murder. I suspect that all Stephen’s life one of these people has hated him and waited for a chance to destroy him.
“It’s a clever person. It’s a person who’s had an opportunity to study his weak spots for years and who’s been prepared to take advantage of that knowledge when the right moment came. His sickness provided that moment.”
“But he didn’t kill his wife!” Walsh protested.
“Precisely. That’s why I say he isn’t insane. He resisted the impulse three times! He finally went to his friend Bristow for help. Those are the actions of a sane man, Captain.”
Walsh shook his head dazedly. “It’s a fantastic theory, Doctor. You’re saying that someone in this household is a vicious, scheming murderer who was trying to use Stephen as a kind of puppet to do his dirty work!”
“That’s exactly it,” Dr. Smith said.
“But it didn’t work!” Walsh said. “Nothing’s happened to Marcia. She didn’t get pushed over the ledge. It was Bristow!”
“Bristow, who knew the story,” Dr. Smith said in his flat voice. “Bristow, who saw his patient falling apart in front of his eyes. Bristow, a brilliant doctor who undoubtedly came to the same explanation for these experiences that I have.
“But he knew more than I do. He knew these people. He was able to check back. Again it’s a guess, but I suspect he’d come on the answer and was on the verge of exposing the would-be murderer. So he got pushed off the ledge. That’s the motive, Captain. Bristow had found the answer to Stephen’s problem.”
“No,” Walsh said sharply. “I can’t swallow it, Doctor. You’re saying that Marcia or Ted or Harriet Moore or Mike Cleghorn is the biggest damn villain on earth! It’s not so. I know them.”
“Do you, Captain?”
“The whole thing is just a theory. There’s no proof,” Walsh said.
“Are you so ready to believe in coincidence, Captain?” the doctor asked. “I can’t accept as coincidence the fact that whenever the impulse toward violence is roused in Stephen, the means for committing murder is always at hand. He has the impulse, and there is a broken saddle girth! He has the impulse, and there is Marcia walking ahead of his car! He has the impulse, and there is poison in his hand! One of these might be coincidence. All three of them I just can’t accept.”
Walsh just sat there, shaking his head from side to side.
“If a man is in an angry argument with his wife, Captain, and has the impulse to strike her, it’s not very dangerous in a physical sense. She may get a black eye or a cut lip. But if he’s fixing a fire and has an iron poker in his hand, then the impulse is dangerous. If he strikes her with the poker he may kill her. So he checks the impulse. But if every time thereafter he gets angry with his wife he finds he has a poker in his hands, the chances of his murdering her in the long run become very great, I’d say. That’s what’s been happening to Stephen. Every time the impulse toward violence arises he finds the poker in hi
s hand! I say it’s not by chance, and I think I can prove it.”
“How?”
“If that girth stitching didn’t break by accident, then we’d know he was meant to find it, wouldn’t we? If the cleaning woman didn’t misplace the poison jar, then we’d know it was misplaced on purpose, wouldn’t we? Would that convince you, Captain?”
“Maybe,” Walsh said.
“There are two parts to this murder mechanism,” Dr. Smith said. “The first part is to prepare the booby trap—the saddle girth, the poison jar—the poker, in short. The second part is to apply pressure to Stephen’s neurotic weakness. It’s really a beautiful device. The impulse is stimulated in Stephen, and then he’s brought face to face with the booby trap. It calls for artistry and perfect timing.”
“But it didn’t work,” Walsh said stubbornly. “We can’t hang anyone for something that didn’t happen!”
“Bristow’s in the morgue,” Dr. Smith said coldly. “That’s real enough, isn’t it, Captain?”
“Yes, that’s real enough,” Walsh conceded.
“His death proves my theory, Captain. We can follow it up or we can let it go. If we let it go, the murderer will bide his time and then I can almost promise you that you will find yourself investigating another fatal accident involving these charming people.”
Walsh struck a match for a cigarette. The flame showed his face, drawn and tired. “Maybe I’m crazy, Doctor,” he said, “but you’ve sold me. Where do we start?”
Ted Hunter was at the portable bar making another round of drinks when Walsh and the doctor came in from the study. Marcia was sitting on the couch, her head resting against the back, her eyes closed. She had just come downstairs from seeing if Stephen had everything he needed. She seemed to be suffering from an exhaustion almost as great as his.
Harriet was still at her sock. Mike Cleghorn was standing by Ted, ready to pass the drinks.
Walsh walked over and stood with his back to the fireplace. The doctor gravitated toward a bookcase in the corner and was apparently disinterested in the whole gathering.
“Drink, Jim?” Ted asked the Captain.
“No, thanks.”
Ted’s eyebrows rose in a mocking expression. “I think I detect an official pronouncement coming on.”
“I’ve been talking with Dr. Smith,” Walsh said. “He’s convinced me that this thing isn’t as simple as I thought. I’m afraid Bob didn’t fall by accident.”
The whole room seemed suddenly suspended in air. Harriet’s knitting needles stopped abruptly. Ted stood, a bottle in one hand, a glass in the other. Mike Cleghorn had struck a match for his pipe and the flame burned slowly down till it scorched his fingers and he dropped it. Marcia’s eyes were wide open, fixed on Walsh.
“Oh rot!” Ted said. He tilted the bottle, and whiskey poured into the glass. Very slowly Harriet’s needles began to move again. Cleg struck another kitchen match on the sole of his shoe and puffed steadily on his pipe to get it going. Only Marcia remained as she was, her tension unbroken.
“Dr. Smith believes Stephen’s statement?” she asked in a low voice.
“No,” Walsh said. “He thinks one of you pushed Bob off the ledge.”
It was a second bombshell. This time everyone turned to look at the doctor. His back was to them. He seemed absorbed in the titles of the books on the shelves.
“That’s not all,” Walsh said.
“It’s enough!” Harriet said sharply. “What kind of hysterical talk is this?”
Walsh went doggedly on. “Bob was murdered because he’s uncovered the plans for another murder.”
Ted threw back his head and laughed. “Here we should have a forty-piece orchestra rushing into the William Tell Overture! Of all the hog-wash!”
“You’re serious, aren’t you, Jim?” Cleghorn said.
“Dead serious, Cleg. Stephen has told the doctor a story that we just can’t toss overboard and forget.”
“Stephen!” Ted said. “Stephen’s nuts!”
“If he is,” Walsh said gravely, “someone here is directly responsible. Someone here has been working on Stephen. The object seems to have been to drive Stephen to kill Marcia.”
“Oh, my God,” Ted said disgustedly. He turned toward the small gray man. His mouth was drawn down in an ironic smile. “What are you, Dr. Smith, one of these fancy Viennese dream interpreters?”
The doctor turned. “There are no dreams involved, Mr. Hunter. There has been a very real, diabolical, and vicious scheme in operation, though. Bristow found out about it and one of you had to get rid of him before you were exposed.”
“My dear Doctor—”
“One of you has been trying to destroy Stephen Drake,” the doctor said. “To destroy his mind, to smash his life, and possibly to bring about the death of Mrs. Drake also. It’s about as ugly a scheme as I’ve ever come across in my career. That man asleep upstairs has been slowly and deliberately driven to the brink of murder. One of you is responsible.”
Ted turned to the others. “The man’s crazy!” he said.
“He quite evidently believes what he’s saying,” Harriet said in her crisp, dry voice. “Let him finish, Ted.”
“I won’t be finished, Miss Moore,” the doctor said, “till I’ve done the job Bristow set out to do. And I can promise you not to be as careless as he was.”
“Let me get this straight,” Cleghorn said. “You’re accusing one of us of trying to drive Stephen crazy so that he would murder Marcia?”
“Something like that, Mr. Cleghorn.”
“I think,” Cleghorn said slowly, “I’ll go home. I don’t know who you are, Dr. Smith. I don’t know what brand of hashish you’ve been smoking. But I know I don’t have to take this kind of wild accusation from you or anyone else. I advise the rest of you to follow the same course. And I suggest, urgently, Marcia, that you get another doctor for Stephen.”
“Sit down, Cleg,” Walsh said.
The big artist towered over the State Trooper. “Are you saying that as an officer of the law, Jim?”
“Yes.”
“And on what grounds are you restricting my freedom?” There was slow menace in Cleghorn’s voice.
“I’m investigating a possible murder, Cleg,” Walsh said. “If necessary I can hold you as a material witness. You were present when Bob was pushed off the ledge.”
Cleghorn exploded. “Who the hell says he was pushed? Are you letting yourself be mesmerized by this quack pill peddler? So Stephen’s off his nut and made some crazy statement. Is that proof of murder?”
“There seems to be a simple answer to this,” Ted said. “We find out from an authoritative source just where we stand.” He crossed to a telephone on a small table in the corner. “Woodfield 60,” he said to the operator. The others waited in silence, watching him. “Hello, Malcolm? Ted Hunter here. Look, Walsh has gone off his trolley. He’s decided Bob’s fall wasn’t an accident. On the evidence of a jerk doctor who’s spending a holiday here. What. . .oh. . .Well, you’re the County Attorney here. I thought. . .”
There was a long pause and then Ted said in a drawling voice, “You all seem to be going in for voodoo! You can count on me to vote for your opponent at the next election. Be seeing you.”
He put back the receiver. He walked slowly back to the portable bar and poured himself another drink. “It seems, my dear family and friends, that we are in what is known as a box. It seems that Jim and the doctor here have already talked to Malcolm, from the phone in the study. It seems Malcolm is sold too.”
He turned his ironic smile on the doctor. “And finally it seems that we owe Dr. Smith an apology. He turns out to be an eminent psychiatrist. It seems he’s worked on several murder cases with the New York police. He is, in short, a celebrity. Malcolm wouldn’t dream of disputing any of his theories. However, you don’t mind, Doctor, if I go on thinking you’re completely cuckoo, do you?”
“I don’t mind, Mr. Hunter.”
“So you’d better sit down, Cleg,
and I’ll make you another drink,” Ted said. “It seems the noble Captain is quite within his rights to hold us all.”
The clock on the study desk showed 1:45 in the morning. A faint chill had crept into the night air, and the French windows were closed. Marcia Drake sat in the chair to the right of the desk. Walsh sat behind the desk. Dr. Smith again had evaporated into the shadow. Marcia’s hands were locked tightly in her lap.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand any of this, Jim,” she said. “I’ve known that something was wrong with Stephen, particularly for the last two weeks. But when he says, and you seem to believe him, that he’s wanted to—to do me some harm—”
“It’s a tough spot, Marcia,” Walsh said gently. “I think you’ve got to remember that Stephen hasn’t been himself. He was physically sick and when someone began to play games with him he didn’t have the strength to fight back.”
“But he had enough,” Dr. Smith said. “He fought back and he finally went to Bristow for help. It takes more courage to fight what seems to be a fantasy than it does to fight a flesh-and-blood enemy.”
Marcia was silent, staring down at her hands.
“Dr. Smith wants to know about Stephen. You seem to be the person to tell him, Marcia,” Walsh said.
“What do you want to know?”
“Who is Stephen Drake?” the doctor asked in a dull voice. “What kind of person is he? What kind of life has he lived?”
“What I tell you will be biased,” Marcia said. “You see, I happen to love him very much.”
“I hope you do, Mrs. Drake,” the doctor said. “He’s going to need it.”
“You want me to begin at the very beginning?”
“At the very beginning, Mrs. Drake.”
She didn’t speak for a moment. She seemed to be searching back in her mind for just the right starting point. “I think you have to know about my father,” she said. “He was Nicholas Hunter—a very great artist. You may have noticed some of his paintings hanging in the entrance hall. This was his house. Ted and I were both born here. My mother died when I was only a year old and Aunt Harriet came to live with us—to run the house for Father and bring up the children. She was Mother’s sister.