by Ellery Queen
“I ought to knock in your foolish little face,” he said.
“Sit down, Cleg,” Walsh said.
“The whole thing is fantastic,” Cleg said. He made an effort to keep down the anger in his voice. “I’m not pointing at Stephen because I don’t like him. I do. Besides liking him I have a great admiration for him. But he’s worked himself to death at his job and he’s had a crack-up. It could happen to anyone. The point is, he’s not responsible. What gets me is that you base this whole cockeyed theory on his story! And you treat the rest of us, who are all perfectly normal, as though we were irresponsible. It’s crazy! It’s upside down!”
The doctor looked up from a design he’d been drawing on the tablecloth with a fork. “I’m afraid, Mr. Cleghorn, your approach and mine to what is normal and not normal are quite different.”
“I don’t like any part of this, Jim,” Harriet Moore said.
She was sitting in an armchair in the study. There had been time to dress, and with the knitting needles moving in and out of her fingers she seemed more herself.
Walsh sat behind the desk. Dr. Smith stood over by the French windows, hands in his pockets, looking out at the sunlit garden.
“We don’t any of us like it, Harriet,” Walsh said. “But Bob is dead, George Meadows may die, and Stephen’s whole future may be at stake.”
“It’s somehow like tale-bearing,” Harriet said. “Those four are my children.” She smiled. “The nearest thing I ever had to children of my own. I know them inside out, Jim—their weaknesses, their strengths. I know things about them no one else knows, not even themselves. Take Cleg, for instance.”
“Yes, Harriet.”
“That outburst of his in the dining room. Surely it was clear to you what he was up to? His loyalty, Jim, is the very core of his existence. He listened to your explanation and he had to find an answer that would clear us all. It wasn’t himself he was trying to defend. It was all of us.”
“Not Stephen,” Walsh said.
“Stephen too,” Harriet said. “We’ve all been trying to tell ourselves that this was a wild theory. But there’s no escaping the reality of the attack on George. So we have to admit someone’s responsible! Stephen, in his condition at the moment, can’t be held accountable. Cleg wasn’t turning on Stephen. It was simply the least catastrophic explanation.”
“I see.”
“You and the doctor are being quite frightening,” she said. She half turned her head but she couldn’t see the small gray man without moving round in her chair. “It’s like being in a room where the walls are slowly closing in on you. Cleg feels it, just as I do. He’s trying to fight his way out, that’s all. We all know that the answer to this thing is going to smash our comfortable little world. Naturally we resist the idea.”
The doctor spoke from behind her. “But you accept the fact that it must be true, Miss Moore?”
“I have to accept it,” she said quietly.
“Then help us,” Walsh said. “You say you know these people. What goes on beneath the surface? How do they really feel about each other?”
Harriet bent over her knitting for a moment. “Marcia is the simplest of the lot to explain,” she said. “She was a normal, healthy girl. As a child she had everything in the world she wanted, and it didn’t seem to spoil her unduly. She was Saint Nick’s favorite. When we went on picnics she always rode with him on the front seat. Being a girl she got extra presents. I think sometimes she got away with murder when there’d been mischief afoot. Saint Nick was always perfectly willing to believe her innocent. I know she loved her father deeply, but she wasn’t above using her favored position with him to get special advantages.”
Harriet looked up. “If I make her sound scheming and tricky I don’t mean to. I’m trying to draw you a picture of a very understandable, human, usual child.”
Walsh grinned. “I didn’t think she was average at the time! She was just about the most glamorous person I’d ever seen.”
“I don’t think she and Ted were ever conscious of the fact that the lavish setting in which they lived made them any different from anybody else. The took it for granted. Marcia had lots of beaus, but I think she explained this, quite properly, on the grounds that she was attractive—not that there were horses and swimming pools and parties. I don’t think she ever thought about that phase of it until Saint Nick died and we were all confronted with actual poverty.”
“How did she take that?” Walsh asked.
“She took it with her chin up,” Harriet said. “I knew she was bewildered and frightened, but she never let on. She went through college, got herself a job. She weathered it.”
“And the boys?”
“Stephen was magnificent. You know that.”
“And Ted?”
“You have to know Ted as I do to understand him,” Harriet said. “I never agreed with Saint Nick’s theories about how the boys should be brought up. He led them to expect that what they had as children they would always have. I think he believed it—and Ted, at least, believed him. It was almost as if Saint Nick had double-crossed him when he died and there was no money. I don’t mean he was resentful. But it was as if he’d believed in something—almost like a religion—and then discovered that it wasn’t true.
“He’s never fully recovered from it. It accounts for his mocking, ironic approach to everything. He always makes fun of any real emotion, or any substantial qualities in other people. I think it’s because he’s afraid to believe in them—afraid he’ll be double-crossed again. It’s because he hasn’t been able to get adjusted, to find anything to hang on to, that he failed in medical school, failed in art school, and you might say failed in the business of living. It isn’t because he hasn’t got it in him. It’s simply that he’s afraid to trust anyone or anything.”
“You’re very fond of Ted, aren’t you, Harriet?”
“Aren’t we always fondest of the ones who need us the most?”
“And Stephen?”
Harriet drew a long breath. “I never knew anyone who didn’t like Stephen,” she said. “I had doubts when Saint Nick brought him into the household as a child. He came from different stock, from a different stratum of society. I didn’t think he could be set down in what to him was a sort of Arabian Nights dream and not be spoiled. I was wrong. Everybody who knows him knows I was wrong.”
“How did Stephen get along with the others?” Walsh asked.
“He was a kind of curiosity at first,” Harriet said. “They all knew the dingy little house he’d lived in down by the railroad station. They suspected he was different. They laughed at his wonderment over this place. Sometimes they were carelessly cruel. But in the end they accepted him completely as one of them. I’m not talking only of Ted and Marcia, but of Cleg and Bob Bristow and the other children. I watched the thing closely in the beginning because I wondered if Ted and Marcia might not resent his sharing their life—the things they thought of as theirs.”
“And did they?”
“I don’t think so. I never saw a sign of it.”
The doctor turned round from the window. “You were really in the position of a mother to these children, weren’t you?”
“Yes, I was.”
“Did you resent Stephen’s sharing their lives—and the things they thought of as theirs?”
She looked up at him sharply, hostilely. “Why should I?”
“It wouldn’t have been unnatural,” he said. His voice was gentle. “A mother usually wants everything she can possibly lay her hands on for her children. You might have felt that Stephen was an intruder.”
She hesitated a long time. “I’d like to be honest,” she said. “I don’t think I did. I may have been doubtful about how it would work, but I don’t think I resented him. Later I came to owe my whole life, my whole security to him.”
“When did Marcia fall in love with Stephen?” the doctor asked.
“I don’t know,” Harriet said. “I always thought she would marry Cleg, or
possibly Bob Bristow. I never thought of Stephen as a possibility. I knew how he felt about her. You had only to look at him when she was present to know how he felt.”
“And you were surprised when she accepted him?”
“Yes. Frankly, I thought she’d made a mistake. Not that I didn’t think Stephen was fine—but I didn’t think she loved him. I thought—well, his buying back the place and setting us all up here—I thought she’d mistaken gratitude for love.”
“And now?”
The needles stopped their clicking. Harriet kept her eyes fixed on the gray wool sock. “I think she loved him. I think she would die for him.” She hesitated. “I’ve tried to be coldly rational about your murder theory, Doctor, but I simply can’t accept the theory that Marcia may be back of it.”
“Ted or Cleg, then?”
“No!”
“That leaves you, Miss Moore.”
Her lips tightened. “That leaves Stephen,” she said. She lifted her eyes. They were somehow tragic. “Cleg is right. It’s the only answer, Doctor.”
“I don’t see that this is getting us anywhere,” Walsh said, when Harriet had left the study.
“Don’t you Captain?” Dr. Smith took the chair Harriet had vacated, and sat there, making a bridge with the tips of his fingers. “This is an interesting case from a police point of view. No one saw Bristow being murdered, though five people were in touching distance of him. No physical clues there or in the slugging of George Meadows. But there’s evidence, nonetheless, Captain.”
“I wish I could see it,” Walsh said.
“It’s more a matter of hearing it, Captain. A murderer may leave no physical evidence, no material traces of his crime, but he can’t erase the clues to murder that are in his mind. We’ve been listening to those clues, and when we have them all assembled, we’ll have enough to point definitely to the killer.”
“You mean you’re making some sense out of all this?”
“Definite sense. There’s only one thing that bothers me.”
“You’re lucky,” Walsh said dryly. “Everything about the whole damned case bothers me.”
“The thing that bothers me is the business of the stable,” the doctor said. “The slugging of George and turning the place upside down doesn’t fit in with the rest of the picture.”
“How come?”
“You really said it yourself at the time, Captain. You said the murderer was getting less subtle. Remember?”
Walsh nodded.
“It was a shrewd observation,” the doctor said. “Up to then we’d been dealing with a person who was playing delicately with the balances of a human mind. When murder became a necessity, in Bristow’s case, it was still handled with finesse. No clues, no untidiness. But the thing at the stable is completely out of character. Here we have the reverse of everything shown in the earlier stages—open violence, panic, hysterical haste.”
“The murderer didn’t want us to find the girth,” Walsh said. “When he realized we were after it he had to move fast.”
“If the girth would have convicted our murderer, Captain, why was it left around until the last minute? There have been two weeks in which to get rid of it.” The doctor leaned forward. “And remember this, Walsh. That girth wouldn’t have convicted anyone; all it could have done was prove our theory for us. Why does this calm, resourceful, keen-minded killer suddenly lose his head and risk everything to find that girth?”
“They all make mistakes,” Walsh said.
“But this mistake is out of character,” the doctor repeated. He sat scowling at the toes of his shoes for a long time. Then he roused himself. “Let’s have Ted Hunter in, Captain. He may tie up some loose ends for us.”
Ted came lounging into the study from the entrance hall. He had shaved and his blond hair was slicked down. He had on a blue polo shirt and a pair of beautifully cut, cavalry-twill fatigue britches.
“All hell has certainly broken loose, hasn’t it?” he said. “That was quite an exhibition Cleg put on in the dining room.” He turned a straight-backed chair around and straddled it, his arms resting on the back. He flicked the ash from his cigarette on the carpet. Walsh slid an ashtray across the desk in his direction. Then he looked at the doctor.
“It’s your show,” he said.
“Really, Doctor, I’m quite frightened,” Ted said. “You fellows who deal with psychiatry always scare the pants off me. I don’t like to be seen through, Doctor.”
“You’re not alone in that feeling,” the doctor said. “You know, it would be easier if we could be direct, Mr. Hunter. But I’m afraid indirection fascinates you.”
“Why do you say that?” Ted asked.
“My observation of you, Mr. Hunter. Your humor is of the oblique kind. You slide the needle in from the side.”
Ted laughed.
“You pretend to be casual and unaffected by anything,” the doctor said, “but you betray the fact from time to time that things touch you quite deeply. For example, when Cleghorn suggested that you were a chiseler.”
A muscle rippled along Ted’s jaw. “Now take it easy. Doctor.”
“Just proving my point,” the doctor said.
Ted relaxed. “I guess anybody would get a little sore at that kind of suggestion.”
“Especially if it’s true,” the doctor said in his colorless, unemphatic way.
“Now look!” Ted said, half rising from the chair. Then he laughed again and sank back. “You’re pretty adept with the needle yourself, Doctor. Okay. Let’s go ahead—as directly as you like. No holds barred.”
“Very well, Mr. Hunter. Did you push Bob Bristow off the ledge?”
“No,” Ted said, smiling.
“Did you slug George Meadows with that tire iron?”
Ted’s smile broadened. “No. Ask me something hard, Doctor.”
“Have you always hated Stephen Drake?” the Doctor asked, without altering his tone of voice.
“Hey, slow down!” Ted said. “Who says I ever hated Stephen?”
“I just asked,” the doctor said.
The two men’s eyes met in a steady look. “All right, Doctor, no holds barred,” Ted said. “There were times I hated Stephen’s guts.” He said it without passion. “I hated him when he first came to live with us. I’ve always been selfish and greedy. I didn’t want to share with anyone. I found out I couldn’t eat the whole Thanksgiving dinner myself, so I stopped hating him.”
He grinned. “But not for good, Doctor. I hated him again later. I hated him for making good when I was pulling a colossal flop. But I got over it. Stephen never played the big shot. And that’s the whole score on hating Stephen. Next question, please.”
“You didn’t object to Marcia’s marrying him?”
“Object!” Ted laughed. “My dear Doctor, I was selling vacuum cleaners from door to door to a lot of disagreeable New York housewives at the time. Stephen offered me a salary to run this place, to school the horses. A salary plus board and keep! Cleg was right. Without the marriage that probably wouldn’t have happened. Hell, I loved it when they got married.”
“And you think they’ve been happy?”
“Being tied to one person forever seems to me to be a pretty dreary business. But if you like it, you like it. They seem to like it.”
“No quarrels?”
“Cooing doves,” Ted said. “Your little pipe dream about Marcia just won’t wash, Doctor.”
“Then you think, along with Cleg and your Aunt Harriet, that Stephen himself is responsible for all this?”
Ted shrugged. “What else can we think? It’s tough. I wish it was the customary passing tramp—having it be Stephen may raise hell with my life! I’m comfortable here, Doctor. I don’t want change.”
“Why should it alter your life?”
“Well, if poor old Stephen goes off to the booby hatch—because that’s where he’ll go, they don’t hang crazy people—I say, if he goes to the booby hatch, things might be upset here.”
“Wh
y?”
“Well, I mean—”
“Marcia would still keep the house, wouldn’t she? There would still be money rolling in from the plant? Why should anything change? Do you think Marcia would kick you out if she were in charge?”
That muscle bulged along Ted’s jaw again. He shook his head. “You certainly are fast on your feet, Dr. Smith. No. I don’t think Marcia would kick me out.”
“You’re on good terms with her?”
“Perfect. Oh, from time to time she gets annoyed with me for being a louse. But not seriously annoyed.”
“So it wouldn’t make any difference in your life, would it, if Stephen were to hang for murder—or be sent away to an institution for the criminally insane?” The doctor’s gray eyes were fixed unblinkingly on Ted.
“No, I guess you’re right, Doctor. It wouldn’t make much difference in my life,” Ted said. “I suppose this is what you might call ‘letting my hair down.’”
“You’re not a man of very deep affections, are you, Mr. Hunter?”
“Not very deep.”
“There are just two more questions I’d like to ask you,” Dr. Smith said.
“Shoot, Doctor. Your questions fascinate me.”
“Do you think I’m a fool, Mr. Hunter?”
Ted stared. “That one really has me off base, Doctor! My answer? I don’t know you very well. You have a good press, apparently. Malcolm thinks you’re a mind reader. Or isn’t that a compliment, Doctor?”
The doctor ignored the crack. “I have a second and last question, Mr. Hunter.”
“Go ahead.”
“Will you confess now?” the doctor asked.
“Confess to what?” Ted asked. He seemed to be enjoying himself.
“Plotting to eliminate Marcia and Stephen; the murder of Dr. Bristow,” the doctor said casually.
“No can do, Doc,” Ted said. He grinned broadly.
“That’s all, Mr. Hunter,” the doctor said.
Ted stood up. “It’s been a very instructive session, Doctor. I always wanted to see a great psychiatric mind at work. I’m afraid it was a little disappointing. No rabbits pulled out of the hat, nothing up the sleeve. Strictly a Grade B production.”