Murder of a Lady (15 page)

Chapter XXIII

Footprints

The carpenter awaited them. He was a tall lean man with big features and clear, bright eyes. He made short work of the idea that the door had not been locked when he opened it.

“It was locked,” he declared. “I tried the handle mysel'. What is more I tried to force the lock. But that's not possible with these doors. I dare say that you knew that Duchlan's father was a locksmith.”

Barley nodded. “You're prepared to swear, are you,” he asked, “that the key had been turned on the inside?”

“I am.”

The detective dismissed the man and told Angus to bring a pair of bellows from the kitchen. Then he invited Dr. Hailey to accompany him.

“I promised you positive proof of McDonald's guilt,” he said. “And will now furnish it. I warn you to be prepared for a surprise. As you've just heard, Eoghan Gregor's story is a fabrication.”

They left the house and walked to the flower-bed which lay under the window of Miss Gregor's bedroom. The detective took the bellows from the piper.

“Observe,” he said, “that Miss Gregor's room is immediately above the study. Also that the earth in this bed is quite dry. Mr. McLeod, the Procurator Fiscal, examined the bed on the morning after the murder and found it undisturbed.” He turned to Angus: “Am I right?”

“Yes, sir. I was with Mr. McLeod, sir, when he examined the ground. It looked exactly as it looks at this moment.”

“Very well.”

Barley applied the snout of the bellows to the surface of the earth and began to blow gently. As he blew dust was driven away in semi-circles, leaving a more or less even surface. He continued to work for a few minutes and then stood erect. There was a puzzled look on his face.

“Well?” Dr. Hailey asked.

“You see, there's nothing. Frankly I don't understand it.” He glanced up at Miss Gregor's window. An exclamation broke from his lips. He pointed to an iron spike sticking out from the wall just above the window.

“What's that?” he demanded of Angus.

“It was put there long ago to carry a sun-blind, sir. But Miss Gregor did not like the blind.”

“You could reach it from the window-sill?”

“Yes, sir.”

The detective measured the distance from the spike to the ground with his eye. Then he stepped on to the border and applied his bellows to a spot immediately under the spike. A few vigorous strokes of the bellows revealed a footprint under the loose dust of the surface. A moment later a second footprint, on which the marks of heavy nails were clearly visible, was disclosed. Barley stood back and pointed to these signs.

“You see. Footprints, one of which is studded with nails.”

A gleam of triumph shone in his eyes. He turned to Dr. Hailey.

“You saw McDonald's shoe,” he exclaimed. “Do you doubt that this print was made by it?”

“No. There's no doubt that it was made by it.”

“Notice: right under the spike. He had a piece of rope apparently. He must have dropped only a short distance because these footprints are not deep. I feel sure that, as soon as he landed, he climbed into the window of the smoke-room; there are no other footprints. No doubt she was waiting for him there, ready to throw a few handfuls of loose earth on his tracks.”

Dr. Hailey nodded: “It must be so, of course,” he said. “I congratulate you.”

They returned to the house and mounted to Miss Gregor's room. Barley climbed out on the window-sill and satisfied himself that the spike was within reach.

“We may as well complete our job,” he declared, “by inspecting the spike from above. The iron is rusty and it's long odds that the rope he used has left some trace of its presence.”

This expectation was confirmed. Looking down from the window of the little pantry, which served the nursery on the top floor, Dr. Hailey had an excellent view of the upper surface of the iron spike. The thick rust on the surface had been broken away at one place and the metal was visible.

“Are you satisfied, now, that a rope was used?” Barley asked.

“Yes.”

“That must be the explanation, because, as you see, nobody can possibly have reached the spike from above, the drop is too great. Nobody reached it from below because there are no signs of the use of a ladder. It was reached therefore from the window-sill, which as I've just proved, is easy.”

Barley leant against the dresser, which occupied one side of the room, and on which were standing jugs of milk and dishes of various kinds.

“What I think happened was this,” he said. “When Mrs. Eoghan realized that her aunt was determined on her ruin and the ruin of her lover, her first idea, as you know, was to run away. But neither she nor McDonald has any money. He saw the folly of that course. Did he not exert himself to get the girl home again when she escaped to his house? From what you told me about that incident, I think it's a just inference that he had become thoroughly alarmed by her violence and by the reactions to her violence in this house. He was specially afraid of Miss Gregor, whose character he knew only too well. But to get rid of a headstrong woman with whom one has become compromised is no easy task.
Facilis est decensus Averni
,
sed revocare gradum, hic labor, hoc opus est!
”

The quotation broke gorgeously from his lips. He swept the air with his hands, making the plates behind him rattle.

“Mrs. Eoghan could summon him whenever she wished, because of her child. She compelled him in addition—and perhaps he needed no compulsion—to visit her unofficially in his boat. He learned that matters were going from bad to worse here. Then came discovery, and the immediate prospect, almost the certainty, of ruin. Duchlan might perhaps be induced to forgive and forget, but not so Miss Gregor.

“And so the murder was planned. The exact nature of these plans can only be guessed at; I admit that gaps still exist in our knowledge. But the outline is clear. After the doctor's arrival on the night of the murder, Mrs. Eoghan went to her aunt's room and told her that she was much alarmed about her child. That prepared the way for Dr. McDonald's coming to the bedroom. When he came, Mrs. Eoghan went downstairs to the study. The doctor must then have struck his blow. As you know it was a blow of terrific violence which, nevertheless, was not mortal. But the old woman's heart failed. He locked the bedroom door on the inside, assured himself that she was dead, fixed his rope in a single loop over the spike and let himself down from the window, which he had closed behind him. The rope was not long enough to bring him to the ground. There was a short drop. As we saw, it only remained to climb into the smoke-room, coil up the rope, get rid of the weapon, and cover the footprints. McDonald then left the house by the front door. He knew that he would be sent for as soon as the crime was discovered. Things fell out so well, as you know, that he was actually afforded the opportunity next morning of bolting the window without being observed, thus placing a most formidable barrier between his pursuers and himself.”

Barley spoke with a pride which, in the circumstances, was pardonable. His case was complete; there remained only the work of rounding it off.

“I hope,” he added, “that you will criticize me without mercy.”

Dr. Hailey shook his head.

“The only criticism I could make has been made already by yourself. The facts and the people seem to be ill-mated. On the other hand, so far as I can see, the people, in this case, must yield to the facts. There is no other possible explanation.”

“No.” Barley made the plates rattle again. “The murder of Dundas is incredible if Dr. McDonald did not commit it. Think of it; you were on guard, so to speak, at the door of his room; that young fisherman was watching the window. You're ready to swear that nobody entered by the door; he's ready to swear that nobody entered by the window. And we know that Eoghan Gregor's story is an invention.”

“We presume that, at any rate.”

“No, sir.” Barley smiled suddenly. “You noticed perhaps that I left you on the way up to this room. I looked into Dundas's bedroom. The mattress in his bed is a hair mattress, a hard hair mattress at that. I presume that he must have asked that the feathers might be taken away. Eoghan was unaware of the change.”

There was a knock at the door of the pantry. Christina entered and asked Dr. Hailey to come into the nursery for a moment.

“It's Hamish,” she explained. “He looks queer again.”

She led the way, but turned back to close the door of the nursery behind the doctor. He walked to the cot where the child was lying asleep and bent over him.

“What happened?” he asked.

“His face was twitching.”

“I don't think there is anything to be alarmed at.”

He listened to the child's breathing for a few minutes and then turned to the old woman who stood behind him plucking nervously at her apron.

“What he wants is sleep, rest.”

Christina's eyes were troubled. She shook her head in a fashion that expressed melancholy and resentment.

“Where is the poor lamb to find rest in this house?” she asked in her rich tones. Suddenly she took a step forward; she raised a skinny hand.

“Will you tell me: is it true that the detective from Edinburgh will be suspecting Hamish's mother?”

“I…I don't think I can discuss that.”

The old woman uttered a cry.

“Oh, it will be true then, if you will not tell me.” She put her hand on his sleeve and raised her black eyes to his face. “She is not guilty,” she declared in tones of deep conviction. “I know that she is not guilty.”

Dr. Hailey frowned.

“How can you know that?”

“Mrs. Gregor would not hurt a fly.”

He shook his head. He had no wish to argue the case with this old woman and yet there was something in the passionate earnestness of her voice which challenged him.

“I hope you're right.”

She continued to clutch his arm.

“I know what the man from Glasgow will be saying,” she declared. “That it was Dr. McDonald who killed Miss Gregor, him being helped by Hamish's mother.” She released him and stood back from him. “Will you please sit down? There is something that I must tell you.”

He hesitated a moment and then did as she asked. She sat down opposite to him in a low chair that he guessed had been used for generations in the Duchlan nursery. Her face was dark and drawn and the muscles round her mouth were twitching.

“Did you see the scar of a wound on Miss Gregor's chest?” she asked him.

“Yes.”

“I will tell you about it.”

She pressed her hand to her brow and remained for a moment as if praying. Then she faced him.

“I came to Duchlan,” she said, “the year that the laird was married. When Mr. Eoghan was born, his mother asked me to be his nurse. Many's the time I've sat on this chair and bathed him before the fire there. His mother used to sit where you are sitting now.”

She covered her eyes again. An uneasy silence filled the room. Dr. Hailey found himself listening attentively to the soft breathing of the child.

“Well?” he asked.

“She was one of the angels; very beautiful too. The laird he was mad for her. I can hear his step on the stair now, coming up to sit beside her while I bathed Mr. Eoghan. Ah, he was a different man in those days from the man he is now, full of jokes and laughter. But Miss Gregor was the same always and he was afraid of her. Do you know she stayed in this house all the time that the laird was married?”

Again she paused. When her eyes were shut she looked like some very old bird moulting its last feathers.

“Miss Gregor had not a good word for her brother's wife. And she was clever and cunning to wound the poor lady. Every day she was making hints and finding faults. The food was not fresh; there was waste going on in the kitchen; the laird's clothes were not aired for him; Mr. Eoghan was not gaining weight. Everything. She did not complain to her sister-in-law; only to the laird. ‘You must speak to her' was what she said always and he did not dare to disobey.

“The laird's wife was an Irishwoman and she had a quick temper. Because she loved her husband it was an affront to her the way Miss Gregor was carrying on. One day, after her husband had complained of her bad housekeeping, she ran to her sister-in-law and told her that she knew where these complaints were coming from. She was so angry that she did not care that I could hear her. ‘Surely I am entitled to speak when I see my brother and his child neglected?' Miss Gregor said in her soft, gentle voice. ‘You are not entitled to make trouble between me and my husband, nor to try to take my child away from me,' Mrs. Gregor said. I saw the blood come boiling up in her cheeks and her eyes. She cried out: ‘Ever since I married, you have tried to steal my happiness from me. You are stealing my husband. Then you will try to steal my child. Other people may think you a good woman but I know what you are.' Miss Gregor smiled and said she forgave everything, as a Christian woman should. Then she went, her eyes red with crying, to her brother to tell him about his wife's temper.”

Christina's toothless jaws snapped. Her eyes glowed.

“Oh, she was cunning. Have you seen a cat waiting for a mouse? The laird began to think that his wife was unjust to his sister. There were dreadful quarrels between them and Miss Gregor was waiting always to take his side. He did not come here any more when his wife was here, but he used to come with his sister. Mr. Eoghan was afraid of Miss Gregor, who was never no hand with children, but his father made him kiss her. Doctor, doctor, I knew that there was sorrow coming, and I could not do anything to help the poor young lady. Do you know I could see madness growing and growing in her face.”

She bowed her head. When she spoke again her voice had fallen almost to a whisper.

“It was like that, too, with Hamish's mother, only Mr. Eoghan was away from her most of the time.” She clasped her knees and began to sway backwards and forwards. “Hamish was afraid of Miss Gregor. The first time he took one of them turns was after she was here trying to give some medicine of her own. His mother she came to the room and took the poor laddie in her arms because he was screaming with fear.”