Dark of the moon - Dr. Gideon Fell 22 (18 page)

"I ran out of the library and out on the porch. Over by the terrace Madge was lying on the grass in a faint. Everybody else seemed to be pouring downstairs into the hall, including servants, though for the life of me
I
can't remember who was there. Madge wasn't coherent at any time afterwards, even when she came out of her faint. All she'd say was, 'Why did God take
him?
Why did God take
him,
of all people?' And that's all I can . . ." Camilla broke off. "Alan, don't leave me! Where are you going?"

"Only to the weapons-room."

"Why?"

"Camilla," he said, "forgive me for intruding brutal details; I'm afraid there'll be enough of 'em before we've finished."

"Yes? What is it?"

"The side of Mr. Maynard's head was crushed with one heavy blow. It wasn't done with a tomahawk; we know that now. If something else has gone from that room, say a musket or one of those rifles . . ."

Thick, airless night had closed in with almost physical pressure. As Alan moved towards the weapons-room, Camilla clinging to his arm, the door opened.

In the aperture stood Yancey Beale, his right hand on the light-switch and his left shading his eyes. The lights were full on behind him, silhouetting the lanky figure.

"Come in, old son," Yancey said in an odd voice. "Come as far as the door, anyway! Got something to show you."

With Camilla clinging and pressing, Alan went no farther than the door. He put his arm around her and held her.

Beyond the threshold he saw not only white room and black weapons. Yancey, with a look still more odd on his clean-cut features, was pointing to the blackboard on its easel by the French window. As though in response to Alan's thoughts, letters had been printed with chalk on the blackboard for a message that leaped out at him.

NO, THERE IS NO OTHER WEAPON MISSING. YOU MAY LOOK FAR BEFORE YOU FIND IT. BUT BE ASSURED OF MY ASSISTANCE AT ALL TIMES.

And it was signed
Respectfully present, N.S.

"More fun and games, eh?" demanded Yancey Beale. "You want to bet the 'N.S.' don't stand for Nathaniel Skeene? He's respectfully present, is he? And it's another

one for the late Dr. M. R. James; you want to bet that too?"

Heard clearly, through two open doors and around the corner, fluid chimes rang from the grandfather clock out in the hall, which struck a single deep note. Alan glanced at his watch. It was half-past nine.

10

Once more fluid chimes rippled from the grandfather clock in the hall; it struck eleven-thirty.

At the end of the inquisition, which after all had been a fairly easy inquisition, four persons remained in the library. Dr. Fell's bulk was piled on the sofa. Captain Ashcroft, notebook on knee, occupied an armchair in the north-west corner of the room, under towering walls of books. Camilla and Alan sat side by side on the piano bench. It was the same group who had lunched at the hotel.

As the clock struck, Captain Ashcroft rose to his feet Beefy, red-faced, grizzled at the temples, he corked down his temper and addressed Dr. Fell.

"Then what it amounts to," he announced, "is just this? Nobody saw anything—anywhere, any place, any time!"

"Is it so very surprising?" asked Dr. Fell. "They were used to our friend Maynard being on that terrace. Once his presence was established, they forgot him. Nobody ever went near him; nobody so much as thought of him . . ."

"Except the one who killed him."

"Oh, ah. We must always except the murderer."

"They've gone to bed now. Leastways," said Captain Ashcroft, "they've gone upstairs, whether or not they do much sleeping. What did you make of
that
bunch, Dr. Fell?"

"We-ell . . ."

"What beats me, what sticks in my craw like somet
hing
you might think of in a graveyard, is that we've probably been talking to the murderer all the time!"

"Probably," said Dr. Fell, "although not necessarily."

"And at least," the other argued, "at least the women are disposed of. Henry's daughter full of drugs and sound asleep! Mrs. Huret on her way home! We've disposed of 'em, that is, except
..."

His eye strayed towards Camilla, who sat up straight.

"I'll go, of course, if you tell me to," she said. "I don't
want
to go; I don't want to be alone. Still, if you order me out—!"

"Well, now, ma'am, I can't see you're doing any great harm where you are. You're
comfortable,
sort of, though maybe Mr. Grantham wouldn't agree." He turned back to Dr. Fell. "The women are disposed of, I said. Whatever we think, whichever way we turn, one thing is certain-sure: no woman is concerned in this business! Don't you think so too?"

"It depends on what you mean by 'concerned.'"

"How's that?"

Dr. Fell drew in his breath and exhaled it in a vast puff.

"If you mean," he returned, "that no woman committed this crime or is concealing guilty knowledge of it, then despite the fog on these wits I most heartily agree. Yes, by thunder! But there are other ways of being concerned. We must seek roots; we must go after first causes."

"Yes, and that's another thing! Always go for motive, Dr. Fell; it's my motto, and it's a pretty safe rule. But you can name anybody you want to, anybody in the whole case so far, and yet there's not one damn sign of a motive!"

"Sir," said Dr. Fell, "are you sure?"

"Well, look at what we've got!"

Here Captain Ashcroft held up his notebook.

"Take Yancey Beale, to begin with. Now, I know the boy; I know his daddy. I'd hate to think
he
did what he oughtn't to do, and deep down inside I know he didn't. He swings a mean baseball bat; that's about the worst you can say.

"After I'd talked to him and to Madge Maynard and Miss Bruce here in the l
ibrary, I hiked upstairs to see
Big-League Pitcher Hillboro. You all heard what Yancey told us. He went out to the back garden by way of the weapons-room there—not turning on the lights—and prowled around without doing much of anything. In fact, he walked as far as the old slave-cabins."

"That, if I may mention it here," intoned Dr. Fell, "is the part about which I am not clear. What slave-cabins?"

"About a hundred yards west of that garden," Captain Ashcroft answered, "there are ten brick cabins set in two rows of five each. A hundred years ago the house-slaves —as opposed to the field-hands, who were on another part of the estate—lived in those cabins. They're still in a pretty fair state of repair for places nobody uses or has used since the old days.

"All right! Yancey went as far as the cabins, just messing around all by himself. He was on the way back when he heard the young lady scream. He didn't know what it was, but he knew it was bad. And he didn't return the same way he went out; he ran around the north side of the house to the front
. He was with the rest of 'em (I re
member that) when I carried Miss Maynard upstairs. He stayed nearby—you might say he hovered over her—until Dr. Wickfield got here from town and said she was in no danger.

"Out he went again, by the front door and around to the back where he'd been. 'Kept thinkin' about it,' he says; and smoked about half a pack of cigarettes. But he remembered how I'd said nobody must leave here, and I wanted all of 'em in the house for questioning as soon as the hoo-ha had died down a little. So—"

"If only to demonstrate that my memory at least is unimpaired," Dr. Fell suggested rather ghoulishly, "may
I
supply the ending?"

"Well?"

"Mr. Beale's final move," said Dr. Fell, "was to return by way of the French window into the weapons-room. It had been pitch dark for some time. He groped across the room, switched on the light, and was confronted by that jeering message on the blackboard."

"Oh, the message. Sure! Sure! Sure! You were sayin'?"

"Sir, what do we know of the message?"

"I know it makes me mad. It makes me
so
mad—"

"Gently!" begged Dr. Fell. "And let not your wrathful passions rise. There are times, Captain, when you sound amazingly like an old friend of mine, former Superintendent Hadley. You don't mind a throat being cut, but you can't stand a leg being pulled."

"Who says I don't mind a throat bein' cut? Or a head bein' smashed in either? That makes me madder still.
I
t makes me so goddamn mad
"

"No doubt. At the same time, if you will indulge me,
I
asked what we know of the message and not how it affects you emotionally. May I explain?"

"Course you can explain! I'm from South Carolina, and I'm an even-tempered fellow. You just go ahead and explain!"

Dr. Fell took out a meerschaum pipe and began to fill it from a fat pouch.

"We have postulated two persons: (a) the murderer and (b) some joker affecting to be the ghost of Nathaniel Skeene. About five o'clock this afternoon an anonymous phone-call in a voice unidentified and unidentifiable informed you that the tomahawk had been taken. This call did
not
come from Maynard Hall. There seems little doubt that the phone call and the message on the blackboard originated in the same brain. And yet, unless a sinister Chinaman from the camp of Ho Chi Minn crept in and printed those words at some time this evening, they must have been printed by somebody very much here at the Hall. How do we explain this apparent contradiction?"

For a moment Captain Ashcroft looked at him. Then, wheeling round, he stalked to the door of the weapons-room and threw it wide open. Alan on the piano bench could see him cross to the easel with the blackboard. On the ledge of the easel lay a stick of chalk and a length of grimy rag. Captain Ashcroft picked up the rag. Carefully he erased the printed words, so that the surface of the blackboard shone damply under overhead lights. Afterwards, with a sort of bursting dignity, he stalked back to confront Dr. Fell.

"Yancey Beale," he said, "can't remember whether there were any words on it when he went out through there the first time. The curtains were closed and he can't be sure, but he thinks not The likeliest time for somebody to 'a' printed that stuff was in the uproar after Miss Maynard fainted.

"For the only evidence we've got, you heard what George Dyson said. The blackboard was set up in there when Henry gave a talk to some high-school kids on April 30th. The chalk and the old washrag have been there ever since; the washrag's been as dry as a bone for two weeks. But it's not dry now. Somebody damped it for this very funny caper tonight; maybe for more capers too. Explain it, you say? Explain it, for God's sake? I'd kind of hoped
you
could help out there. Can you?"

"I was pursuing the Socratic method. If you don't want me to pursue it—"

"Not now I don't, and I'll tell you why. We've got ourselves sidetracked! The one with the sense of humor," declared Captain Ashcroft, hunching his shoulders ominously, "can wait till I get my hands on him later on. Our subject was Yancey Beale.

"That's the story Yancey tells; I believe it; I think you believe it too. There's no confirmation, but does it need any? How he behaved was how I'd 'a' behaved my own self, in the days when I was young enough to go court in'. He's really gone on that little blonde daughter of Henry's, and I'm just sentimental enough to hope he gets her when this is all over."

"Continue!" Dr. Fell had lighted his pipe, and was blowing smoke and sparks like the Spirit of the Volcano. "At the moment, sir, no comment from me is either needful or desirable. Continue!"

"Next," said Captain Ashcroft, "there's Big-League Pitcher Hillboro."

"What do you make of
him?"

"I'm not keen on him: he's too smart for his own good. With him it's the big T; what
he
thinks, what
he
knows. Practical experience, eh? He don't know B from bull's foot! And there's nobody as bad as a smart Yankee who won't shut up. But—"

In one corner of the library was a big globe-map on its wooden stand. Captain Ashcroft strode to the globe-map, struck it and set it spinning, after which he t
urned back once more to Dr. Fell.

"Hillsboro
says
he was at the pool-table the whole time, until he heard the young lady scream and ran downstairs. He didn't look out the window before then, but wouldn't have seen anything if he had. He'd put the lights on, as I can testify myself. With lights on in a room, you can't see out the window when it's started to get dark. There's no confirmation of his story either, but is there any good reason for us to doubt it?"