Dark of the moon - Dr. Gideon Fell 22 (33 page)

In the dark lane outside the gate, another car was parked with somebody in it. Paying no attention, Alan went on. Under the portico he encountered a subdued, formally dressed Dr. Mark Sheldon just leaving the house.

" 'Ships that pass in the night,'" said the young doctor, " 'and speak each other in passing.' Whenever you and I meet, sir, I seem always to be dashing away somewhere else."

"Yes, it does look like that. Tonight—"

"Tonight," pursued the other, pointing towards the gate, "my wife is out in the car there. Annette wouldn't go in with me; she said it wasn't right or proper. I felt one
had
to pay one's respects. And yet wherever I turned, in whichever direction I went, there was your friend Dr. Fell standing in front of me.

"Now please understand, Mr. Grantham: I say nothing against Gideon Fell. He's a jovial soul, and has a reputation for being much more acute than he looks. But is he always—frankly, now, is he always quite right in the head?"

"I've usually found him sane enough. Why do you ask?"

"He had a pair of field-glasses," Mark Sheldon replied earnestly, "he told me he'd got from a lumber-room in the attic. He wasn't
using
the glasses, you understand; we were indoors. He held up the
glasses without looking through them
,
h
e
looked at me instead, and said something like, 'With the top part cleared away, there's a wooden crotch that would do for a resting-place.'"

"Well, Dr. Sheldon?"

"Really, now! I wondered if 'resting-place' might be some obscure reference to the funeral on Tuesday, and I asked him. All he said was, 'The windows may be raised or lowered without noise. Please observe, sir, that the windows may be raised or lowered without noise!' Possibly I'm too much of a materialist, but when somebody's mind wanders it makes me uncomfortable. Or
could
it have had a meaning?"

"It had a meaning, though I can't pretend to guess what. Where's the maestro now?"

"In the lounge where they keep the television set and the backgammon-board. He's questioning Rip Hillboro. And now I must go. Let's see!" Mark Sheldon cast up his eyes. "Inquest tomorrow, funeral on Tuesday. Unless you'll be with us for the funeral on Tuesday, Mr. Grantham, there are reasons why I may not see you again. Good night, good night, good night!"

Away bustl
ed the doctor. Alan crossed the porch and opened the screen door, but did not check his stride as he moved towards the lounge at the rear of the hall.

Madge Maynard, a figure of tragedy, stood just inside the door of the dining-room on the right. She wore unrelieved black, in contrast to white skin and golden hair. He would not have intruded on her even if she had seen him, but she did not see him. Madge stood motionless with her head back, fists clenched and eyes tightly closed; she might have been praying.

Alan passed her as he might have passed some image from a dream. In the lounge, all of whose glass doors to the garden were closed against cool night air, Rip Hillboro stood facing Dr. Fell.

"Look, Gargantua," demanded the former, "why do you keep bugging me?"

"Mr. Hillboro," Dr. Fell said gently, "is that your impression of what I am doing? Be more charitable! I have been obliged to corner you in this way, believe me, only because for some time I was unable to find you. Nobody could find you, or seemed to know where you were."

Rip lifted one shoulder.

"Most of the time after dinner," he retorted, "I was packing. They're releasing us tomorrow, as you may have heard, and I've got to get home. I was given a week's leave of absence; I've taken two weeks. The b
oss-man in my firm—old Jeff Channing, of Channing, Lowell & Bos
worth—will have my ears on toast if I'm not back in Hartford within twenty-four hours. So I was in my room, packing . . ."

"May I point out," said Dr.
Fell, "that you were not in
your room half an hour ago? I visited every bedroom in this house; you were in none of them."

Rip strode to the table on which lay the packs of cards and the backgammon-box. Opening the backgammon-box, he took out its dice and rattled them in his hand without throwing them.

"After I'd finished packing, I went for a walk. Anything wrong with that?"

"No, of course not. It was only that . . ."

"Look, Gargantua! I know what you want: you want to hammer me about last night. But I've told you and the Prophet Daniel everything there is to tell. Between eleven-fifteen and a quarter of one—a ninety-minute show—I was with Bob Crandall watching a gangster picture on the idiot-lantern there."

Rip pointed.

"Maybe I'd had too much film already. At some time after it started I dozed off, and didn't wake up until there was a burst of gunfire near the end. Bob had been dozing too;
he
woke up too. During that time I hadn't stirred; I don't think he had either. Then the rest of you came charging in with your news about Valerie. But that's all! That is absolutely—"

"I am not concerned," Dr. Fell assured him, "with the events of last night. But there are several questions, all of them important ones. Will you cooperate?"

Rip flung the dice across the table, turning up a one and a two.

"Not so good for me, Gargantua, if this had been
a
crap-game. Never mind; I'll cooperate. Fire away."

"Mr. Hillboro,
how long have you known the May
nards?"

Rip stared at him.
"That
’
s
important?"

"It is most vitally important, on my word! I could not ask you before; until last night I lacked evidence to support a thesis. How long have you known the Maynards?"

"Well, let me see.
They moved from New York to Go
liath in '56, I think it was. I met Madge in '59, during my last year in law school. Yes, '59! That'd make six years, more or less. So what?"

"Was there any occasion,
to your knowledge, on which
Henry Maynard was absent from home for several months?" "Yes!"

Clearly Rip's interest had been caught, though he might not be able to say why it had been caught.

"Yes!" he repeated. "Soon after they moved to Goliath, I've heard, the Chancellor of Colt University asked Pa Maynard to teach a course on advanced mathematics; lecture on mathematics, that is. He refused. He enjoyed lecturing, as you've heard Madge say
. And Colt's quite a place; it’s ver
y h
ea
vily endowed. But it lacks the centuries of tradition that appealed
to the
Old man. So he refused. Still curious, Gargantua?"

"Very much so; continue!"

"At some time in '60," pursued Rip, "the same offer was made by Cotton Mather College at Polchester, Massachusetts. Cotton Mather's a small institution and very Congregationalist, but it's crusted with tradition and almost as old as Harvard. Pa Maynard accepted for the academic year '61-62. At Goliath he installed a housekeeper to look after Madge—she's not much of a home-maker, you know—and went off to Polchester rejoicing. But he stayed only one semester, the fall term of '61. Then he was back again, saying young people were mostly dumb-bells and rejoicing more than when he'd gone away." Here Rip rose to a point of order. "Now look, Gargantua! I don't know what this is all about or in aid of. But you might give me a hint. And what else do you want to know?"

"Nothing else, Mr. Hillboro. That is all."

"All?"
Rip blurted, and looked at him in a dazed way. "Did you say all?"

"I did."

"Then would you mind releasing me now? I've got several matters to attend to. I want to see Madge, for one thing; I
must
see Madge, now that she's out from under wraps. Sorry I could give you so little help."

"So little help?" scoffed Dr. Fell, lifting his stick high. "You have given the most dazzling help; you have added the last brick to the edifice. You have given so much help, in fact, that I will reward you with no mere hint but a valuable tip. You leave Charleston tomorrow?"

"Yes, in the afternoon. There's a flight via Washington that will get me home by early evening. Were you saying something about a tip?"

Throughout this exchange Alan had been standing in the doorway of the lounge, apparently unnoticed either by Rip or by Dr. Fell. Over his shoulder, when he moved farther into the room, he thought he detected a movement as of someone listening in the hall behind him. But he paid no attention; Dr. Fell was off again.

"Something about a tip? Oh, ah! Tomorrow morning —" began
Dr. Fell, breaking off to make a
hideous face of warning and caution,
finge
r on lip. "Sh-h!" he said.

“W
hat's the matter with you, Garga
ntua? Why all this business of
sh-h'?"

"Tomorrow morning," Dr. Fell said in a stage whisper, "Captain Ashcroft will have a warrant to search the belongings of every person in this house. He will search another house too, though that hardly concerns us here. The warrant, let me repeat, will be used early tomorrow. If there is anything you don't want found in your possession —I refer to no guilty secret,
of course, but to anything at al
l—be sure you get rid of it before then. Do we understand each other?"

"Look, what is there to understand?" Rip asked with a certain hauteur.
"I've
got nothing to hide, you know. They can search my room or my luggage or my person; good luck, and be damned to 'em. Still, thanks for the tip. You mean well, I suppose, though you're a little heavy-handed in your methods. So long for now; see you later."

And he strode out into the hall. Dr. Fell, wheezing and puffing, addressed Alan like a man winding himself up for an effort.

"Come in," he said heartily, "by all means come in! I am no very successful conspirator, I fear, having neither the face nor the figure for such a role. But I do the best I can. Our young friend Sheldon already doubts my sanity, and I should not wish to carry the thing too far."

Alan looked at him.

"You bothered Mark Sheldon by your antics with a pair of field-glasses. And you've already carried it too far. Magister, what
about
those field-glasses?"

"The glasses," replied Dr. F
ell, "were the same ones I
was handed on Friday afternoon to inspect Fort Sumter from a distance. I retrieved them from the attic on my arrival this evening. It was dark when I arrived, of course; putting the glasses to their proper use at first seemed something of a problem." Excitement shook him like strong drink. "However, with the aid of Captain Ash-croft's electric torch, we were able to
see”

'To see what?"

"To
see
the place where the foliage had been cut away.
It
was the first and most obvious move, you'll agree?"

"Hardly obvious, no. I can't agree until you make yourself a little more clear."

"But I
am
making myself clear! Hang it all! For your further enlightenment, I might add that in the attic I also found an instrument neither of us had observed before. It was a pair of scales"

"Scales?"

"Medium-weight scales," Dr. Fell said earnestly, "of the sort we often see on the counter in an English bank. Bankers use it, no doubt, for weighing silver and coppers. Why Henry Maynard originally procured the scales, or what he wanted with it, I don't presume to conjecture. But it was of inestimable value to somebody else in weighing the weapon of the murder. Surely that much at least is plain, I hope? Or . . . no," and with a wild gesture Dr. Fell clutched at his hair, "perhaps it is
not
plain in all respects?"

"No, definitely it's not. Now look here, Magister!" Alan burst out. "When the time comes to put the cards face up on the table, you'll explain in short words which can't be misunderstood. Has that time almost come?"

"It has."

"Meanwhile, the facts that are so radiantly clear in your own mind will have less radiance in the minds of others. Better say nothing at all than talk what sounds lik
e gibberish. I can't think why I
was summoned here," Alan exclaimed, "or what help I can be at the finale—"

"Well! A disinterested witness . . ."

"Am
I a disinterested witness, Dr. Fell? I'm concerned with Camilla Bruce; with nobody else. How deeply I'm concerned with her may not be of any importance, but it's a fact Where is she now, by the way?"