Murder of a Lady (13 page)

Chapter XX

Eoghan Explains

Eoghan's tones were so steady, his manner so insolent in its calmness, that even Barley was shaken. He recoiled, and then, collecting himself, sat down and assumed his most judicial attitude.

“Do I understand,” he asked, “that you are accusing yourself of the murder of Miss Gregor?”

Eoghan's face had become paler; but he kept so excellent a self-control that this was scarcely noticeable. He bore, Dr. Hailey thought, a remarkable likeness to his father; the harshness of Duchlan's face, however, was softened by a quality which derived no doubt from his Irish mother. The young man looked like an eighteenth century nobleman a little the worse for wear, but with his pride untarnished. His rather girlish cheeks and mouth accentuated, if anything, the firmness of his expression and the cold resolution in his eyes.

“Let me remark at once,” Barley declared, “that you made this confession when you heard that I suspected your wife.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc
, may not be good logic in every instance; but the temptation so to regard it in this case is very great.” He waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal. “I do not believe that you murdered Miss Gregor.”

“No?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you expect me to supply you with proofs?”

“Yes, since only the strongest possible proof is going to convince me.”

“My aunt has left me all her money. And I need money very badly.”

“What does that prove?”

“That her death came most opportunely. Not a minute too soon, believe me.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because it's true. My father, as it happens, has no money. I could not have borrowed from him. And the debts I must meet immediately run into thousands—many thousands.”

“Surely you could have borrowed the money from your aunt?”

“Oh! no. My aunt looked on gambling as a deadly sin.”

“My dear sir, people's opinions are necessarily conditioned by circumstances.”

“Not my aunt's opinions.”

“Everybody's opinions. It was Napoleon who said that men are always and everywhere the same.”

“Napoleon didn't know my aunt.”

Not a flicker of a smile accompanied this statement. Barley gasped, biting at the air in the manner peculiar to him.

“May I say,” he remarked, “that, in my humble opinion, the occasion is unsuitable, most unsuitable, for jesting.” He leaned forward as judges sometimes lean from the Bench. “May I ask how you entered your aunt's room?” he demanded.

“By the door.”

“I have reason to believe the door was locked.”

“What reason?”

“Your wife stated that she heard Miss Gregor lock the door.”

“Are you prepared to take her word on that point?”

Barley frowned. “Why not?”

“You haven't taken her word on any other point, have you?”

Eoghan raised his eyebrows as he asked this question. The effect on Barley was all that he could have wished. The man scowled and then flushed angrily.

“I must beg leave,” he cried, “to accept or reject according to my instinct and experience.”

“That means, doesn't it, according to your theory of the crime?”

“It does not. I have no
a priori
theory. I look for facts and am guided by what I find.”

“I can only repeat that I entered the bedroom by the door.”

“How did you leave the bedroom?”

Eoghan flicked a speck of dust from the sleeve of his shooting coat.

“By the door.”

“What!”

“It's obvious, isn't it, that I didn't leave by the window?”

“The door was locked on the inside,” Barley stated.

“How do you know?”

Dr. Hailey saw Barley start; but the fellow had excellent nerves.

“There are five witnesses to prove that: Angus, the carpenter who cut away the lock, Dr. McDonald, the maid who took up your aunt's tea, and yourself.”

“On the contrary there are no witnesses at all. The door was held shut by a small wedge which I placed under it. The maid naturally thought it was locked; she's young and unsuspecting. When she called me I confirmed that. Angus never tried the door at all. He's old and believes what I tell him. Why should the carpenter disbelieve when I sent for him to cut the lock away? Why should McDonald disbelieve? After the lock was cut out I pulled out my wedge. Then I found an opportunity to turn the key in the lock.”

He shrugged his shoulders slightly as he finished his account.

“With what weapon did you kill your aunt?” Barley demanded in husky tones.

“The wood-axe from the kitchen.”

Eoghan raised his eyelids and gazed at the detective. “I got it when I took some herring I had bought down to the larder.”

The shot told. It was evident to Dr. Hailey that Barley had been keeping the matter of the herring scales up his sleeve for use as a final argument. He threw up his head like an angry horse.

“Were these the methods adopted by you,” he demanded in tones of bitter sarcasm, “when you killed my colleague Dundas?”

“Not quite.”

“What, you suggest you committed that crime also?”

“It's obvious, isn't it, that both crimes were committed by the same person?”

“You waste my time, sir. You did not kill Dundas.” Barley rose and dismissed the young man with a gesture. But Eoghan did not seem inclined to go away. He took a small gold cigarette-case from his pocket.

“May I smoke?”

“I have no more questions to ask you.”

He lit a cigarette.

“I think you may have more questions to ask me, however,” he said, “when I point out to you that Dundas's bed was provided with a feather mattress and an eiderdown. One of the Duchlan feather mattresses; one of the Duchlan eiderdowns.”

There was a ring of triumph in his voice as he spoke. Dr. Hailey felt the blood rise to his own cheeks. Both McDonald and he had looked under the bed after the murder; neither of them had looked in it.

“What do you mean?”

“My aunt possessed the deepest, the most voluminous feather mattresses in a county which holds the world's record in that respect. Her eiderdowns, as you must have seen, are of equal merit. One can lie on such a mattress, under such an eiderdown, without causing so much as a ripple on the bed's surface, provided one has time to settle down and arrange oneself. And I had ample time.”

A look of lively horror filled Barley's eyes. He gasped, but no longer solemnly; Dr. Hailey saw that his hands were wet.

“What happened? What did you do?” he cried in tones that showed how small a measure of self-control remained to him. Eoghan took his cigarette from between his lips and looked at the lighted end critically.

“Hit him on the back of the head with a lead sinker,” he remarked coolly. “Did it as soon as Dr. Hailey left the room. Only one arm needed, and that was tucked nicely away under the eiderdown before Dr. McDonald got to the room. One got a bit cramped, of course. Still…”

He broke off and replaced the cigarette in his mouth. He added: “Dundas, unlike yourself, Mr. Barley, was on the right track.”

He rose as he spoke. His cigarette-case, which he had omitted to return to his pocket, fell clattering to the floor. He stooped down to pick it up.

At the same instant Dr. Hailey sprang from his chair and hurled himself on the stooping figure.

Chapter XXI

Cheating the Gallows

The two men rolled together on the floor. Barley sprang to the help of his companion and between them they secured Eoghan. When that had been accomplished Dr. Hailey put his hand in the young man's pocket and took out a revolver.

“Fortunately,” he stated, “I saw the bulge it made in his pocket.”

Eoghan's face had become flushed and his collar and necktie were dragged out of place; but he did not appear to have lost his self-control.

“Now that you've got my pistol,” he said, “you can leave me.”

Barley, who was holding down his shoulders, shook his head.

“Certainly not, sir.” He addressed himself to Dr. Hailey. “Search all his pockets, if you please. He may have other weapons hidden about his person.”

Dr. Hailey was looking after the pistol. He put it down and passed his hands quickly over the young man's body. Then he signed to the detective. Eoghan was allowed to rise.

“You forget, perhaps,” he said in unruffled tones, “that as an officer in the Army I'm entitled to carry a pistol.”

“But not to use it,” Barley exclaimed.

“How do you know that I was going to use it?”

“It's enough, sir, that we have no assurance that you were not going to use it. Are you not a self-confessed assassin?”

The young man shrugged his shoulders. He rearranged his collar.

“What I can never understand about the police,” he remarked, “is the tender care with which they surround people whom they know they will have to hang very soon. Why prevent a poor devil from doing himself in, if he has the courage?”

Nobody answered him. He strode to Barley and stood facing him.

“May I ask that you will not tell my wife anything about what I have told you,” he requested, “until my arrest has taken place?”

“Why not?”

“Good gracious, man, surely it's better to save people unnecessary suffering! If she knows I'm likely to be arrested she'll move heaven and earth to save me. And she can't save me.”

Barley shook his head.

“I make it a rule,” he declared, “never to make promises which I may not be able to keep. The chances are that it will not be necessary to tell your wife, but it's too early yet to be sure.”

Eoghan shook his head.

“If you people would only adopt the decent and merciful methods of the Army,” he exclaimed, “what a lot of distress would be saved.”

Nobody answered him. He turned to Dr. Hailey.

“You know that Oonagh suspects that I killed Aunt Mary,” he challenged.

“I think she did suspect you.”

“Take it from me her feelings haven't changed. She knows about my debts. There was only one way of paying these debts, and not to be able to pay them meant expulsion from the Army.”

He broke off and lit another cigarette. Then he added:

“Tell Mr. Barley about Oonagh. It will help him to understand her character and her relations with me.”

There was a note of pride in his voice which was unmistakable. He turned to Barley.

“Do you want me here any longer?” he asked.

Barley had returned to the fireside. He looked uneasy and doubtful about his duty.

“Technically you've given yourself up,” he stated. “But it remains to be decided whether or not I accept your story. I have not yet accepted it. Far from it. You must remain in the castle till my decision shall have been taken.” His manner had become dictatorial; but his mouth was as full as ever of phrases. He waved his hand; Eoghan walked out of the room.

“Do you really suppose, my dear doctor, that he meant to shoot himself?”

“Yes.”

Barley took the pistol and opened it.

“It's loaded, anyhow.” He emptied it and put the cartridges in his pocket. “It's just possible, I suppose, that he may have murdered his aunt and Dundas. Believe me, your apparently impossible crime always admits of several different explanations. On the other hand the law, as you know, holds confessions suspect. Murderers, cold-blooded murderers at any rate, are not prone to confess their crimes.”

“No.”

Dr. Hailey considered a moment, and then told Barley about Oonagh's attempt to drown herself and her husband's subsequent visit to Darroch Mor.

“I have no doubt,” he added, “that Duchlan knew what was afoot. I don't think Eoghan Gregor knew.”

“But this is tremendously important, my dear sir.” Barley began to walk up and down the room. “If Duchlan knew, and I share your view that he must have known, then it follows that he had counselled this tragic act. Why should he do that?” A gesture executed with both hands consigned the house of Gregor to bottomless deeps. “Manifestly, because he knew that his daughter-in-law was guilty of playing a part in the murder of his sister. That knowledge, in my humble opinion, would exert on the old man an influence tending to awaken all his most inhuman qualities. He's as proud as Lucifer. He's as cold-blooded as a fish. If the girl was guilty let her drown. Better that than a trial and a public condemnation. Anything to save the sacred name of Gregor!”

Dr. Hailey nodded.

“I reached more or less the same conclusion. Eoghan also gave me the impression of suspecting his wife. I must add, though, that his wife seemed to suspect him. I believe myself that her attempt to drown herself was prompted by the determination to shield him.”

‘‘In view of her relations with Dr. McDonald, I confess that that question scarcely interests me. Women do not shield with their lives husbands whom they have already discarded. On the other hand, if Duchlan knew that she was accessory to his sister's murder, her fate was sealed. With his son's name at stake that old man would not spare her; from his point of view she was better drowned than hanged.”

He clapped his hands. ‘‘I shall question the old man. I had meant to send for Dr. McDonald, but Duchlan shall come first. Now I understand why he nearly fainted when I said that McDonald was the only man who could have murdered Dundas.”

That idea formed the basis of the first questions which Barley addressed to Duchlan. The old man looked pale and more wasted than usual but his eyes had not lost their quickness. He seated himself like a king about to give an audience and disposed his hands on the arms of his chair according to his habit. His head kept moving backwards and forwards. The detective showed him a deference which he had not accorded to any earlier witnesses.

‘‘My investigations,” he explained, ‘‘have made it necessary that I should inquire closely into the behaviour of your daughter-in-law both before and after the death of your sister.” He paused. When he spoke again his voice had assumed a grave tone. “I have reason to believe that you were a witness of certain incidents which you have not, so far, seen fit to mention to the police.”

“For example?”

“Mrs. Eoghan Gregor was in the habit of meeting Dr. McDonald at night on the shore.”

Duchlan closed his eyes. The wrinkles in his face deepened as his muscles contracted. He looked like a mummy recalled suddenly to affliction.

“You are aware that your daughter-in-law met Dr. McDonald in this way?”

“Yes.”

“You were the witness of one, or more, of these meetings?”

“Yes.”

“Was Miss Gregor with you on these occasions?”

“Yes.”

Barley leaned forward.

“Was your presence observed by your daughter-in-law and the doctor?”

The old man bowed his head.

“Yes.”

“That was the reason why Mrs. Eoghan retired to her bedroom at such an early hour on the day before your sister was murdered?”

“My sister felt it to be her duty to warn my son's wife. Unfortunately her kindness was misunderstood and resented.”

Duchlan spoke in low tones, but his voice was perfectly clear. It was obvious that he suffered greatly in being forced to recall the incident. But Barley was inexorable.

“I'm afraid,” he stated, “that I must ask for details. For instance, did Miss Gregor utter any threat?”

“She said that, as Eoghan's nearest relation, she must tell him about what was going on.”

“Ah.”

“As a matter of fact she had already written to Eoghan, hinting that things were not in a satisfactory state. She took that action, believe me, after long and most anxious consideration and after very many attempts to recall my daughter-in-law from the dangerous course on which she was embarking.”

“I see.” Barley closed his eyes and nodded gravely. “
Facilis est decensus Averni, sed revocare gradum
,” he quoted insolently.

The rest of the quotation was lost in his moustache. Duchlan sighed.

“We had both done all that lay in our power to preserve Oonagh from disaster,” he said. “The time for warning had evidently gone by, though in my weakness, as I now recognize, I was prepared to accord one further chance.”

“You were against telling your son?”

“Perhaps I feared to tell him.” The old man glanced up rather timidly. “My son is quick-tempered. And he is devotedly attached to his wife.”

“Miss Gregor over-ruled your fear?”

“She anticipated it. I was not aware that she had written to Eoghan. When I heard that she had done so I recognized the wisdom of her action.”

Dr. Hailey had been leaning back in his chair. He intervened to ask:

“When Miss Gregor wrote to your son did she know about the meetings with Dr. McDonald at night?”

“No. In point of fact neither she nor I knew about these meetings until the night before she met her death. What we did know was that my son's wife was in constant communication with the doctor.”

“So the question on the fatal day,” Barley exclaimed, “was whether or not a definite accusation was to be made as soon as your son returned?”

“Yes.”

“And whereas you favoured mercy, your sister was determined to punish?”

“Please don't express my dear sister's attitude in that way,” Duchlan pleaded. “Goodness and mercy abounded in her heart. Her one, her only concern, believe me, was the welfare of this misguided and rebellious girl. She felt, I think, that her own influence was exhausted; Oonagh had defied her and made cruel and untrue accusations against her. My dear Mary wished that the strength of the husband might be made available to rescue the wife. Naturally her thought and care went out, too, to Eoghan, for she had been more than mother to him, and to Eoghan's child, exposed meanwhile to these lamentable influences.”

Barley shook his head.

“No mother, in my humble judgement,” he declared, “can endure the thought that her child is to be taken away from her.”

“You misunderstand, sir. My dear sister's plan was not to remove Hamish from his mother's custody, but to place his mother under some measure of restraint. She felt that if Oonagh could be influenced by herself, the girl's good qualities of courage and cheerfulness might be developed in such a way as to effect a change of character.”

Barley shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands. Then his business-like manner reasserted itself.

“Did your daughter-in-law complain to you or your sister,” he asked, “that her husband had failed to provide her with a home of her own?”

“She did, yes. She made many bitter and unjust complaints against Eoghan. These, as you can imagine, were very difficult to bear and it needed all my dear sister's self-restraint and kindness of heart to bear them. We pointed out to her that she was fortunate in possessing a good and kind husband whose sole desire it was to make her happy and to make provision for her boy. The pay of an Army officer is small. Eoghan's resources were slender and had it not been that his aunt and I, but especially his aunt, gave him some financial help…”

Barley interrupted with a sudden gesture.

“So,” he exclaimed, “your son and his wife were dependent to some extent on your sister's bounty?”

“To a very great extent. The pay of a Captain in the gunners approximates to £1 a day. Eoghan's personal expenses absorb all that. My daughter-in-law has been living here at the expense of myself and of my dear sister.” Duchlan paused and raised his eyes. “Not that we have ever begrudged her anything for her good.”

“You made your son no regular allowance?”

The old man raised his hand and moved it in a circle which indicated and presented his estate.

“How could I? You've seen these heather hills. What is there to yield an income? Believe me, it has been as much as I could do to make ends meet these many years. When Eoghan told me he was going to marry, I had to warn him that he must make provision for his wife out of his pay. Then my dear Mary came to his rescue. She possessed a considerable fortune of her own.”

Barley's face expressed both doubt and some indignation.

“It appears to me,” he said, “that your late sister made a mistake in her manner of giving. Your daughter-in-law must have felt like a charity boarder in this house. Does she, tell me, possess any means of her own?”

“Oh, no. None.”

“What did she do for pocket money, pin money, whatever it's called?”

“My dear sister allowed her to buy her clothing at certain shops…”

“What, do you mean to say she had
no
money that she could call her own?”

“I think Eoghan sent her such sums of money as he could spare.”

“Her position was worse than that of your servants?”

Duchlan did not reply for a few minutes. Then he said:

“She had no expenses so long as she remained here with us.”

“I see.” Barley leaned forward suddenly. “Tell me please: At what period of her stay did your daughter-in-law begin to complain of her husband?”

“She has never seemed to be really satisfied. But these last weeks have been much more trying than any earlier period.”