Shroud of Darkness

by E. C. R. Lorac

  Returning to Sally in the sitting room, he said: “I can’t find any sign of anybody getting in—and Rosa evidently doesn’t keep to her appointed hours. You’re sure there’s nothing else missing?”

  “I don’t think so, though somebody went through my writing bureau. Everything’s there, but its position has just altered a little.”

  Macdonald nodded: “I’m sure you’d notice: you’re both very tidy girls. Now tell me this: you say that young Greville gave you his Penguin: did you by any chance exchange books and give him yours?”

  “Yes. I did. Mine was a Ngaio Marsh.”

  “And was your name written in it?”

  “Yes. I always write my name in books: you’re more likely to get them back when people borrow them. How did you guess all that?”

  “It wasn’t very difficult,” said Macdonald. “Now will you tell me a bit about yourself. You said your home is in Kingsbridge: were you born in Devon?”

  “Oh no, I was born in London—near Regent’s Park. It’s the usual story for a Londoner of my age—I’m not quite twenty-one. In 1939 I was seven and my sister was five, so Mummy took us away from London and we stayed at a farm near Kingsbridge. Then we got a little house in Kingsbridge and Daddy came down to stay with us when he could. He was a doctor: he died early in 1945, of pneumonia, they say. It was really overwork. My mother decided to stay in Devon; we’d got fond of the little house and there wasn’t too much money. Susan, my sister, lives with Mummy. Dr. Garstang got to know us in Devon: he spent his holidays there when he could. When I’d finished at school, he said if I learnt to type and all that I could come to him as his secretary. Is that what you wanted to know?”

  Macdonald smiled at her. “Yes. You’re a very good witness, you state the essential facts clearly. This queer story seems rooted in Devon, doesn’t it? Was Dr. Garstang born in Devon?”

  “No. He was born abroad. In Germany, I think. He’s keen on walking and sailing, and he’s got fond of Dartmoor and the coast. He used to keep a boat at Salcombe, and he’s often taken me sailing round Bolt Head and across Bigbury Bay up to Devonport. It’s such a gorgeous coast—but you don’t want to hear me enthusing about Devon.”

  “I wish I did,” said Macdonald soberly. “I don’t want to frighten you or worry you, Miss Dillon, but I’ve got to say this: by sheer chance you’ve got involved in a problem which has very ugly possibilities. When Richard Greville was knocked down, his pockets were emptied and his haversack taken. The Penguin you gave him in exchange for his was either in his pocket or his haversack, and your name was written in it. Sarah Dillon isn’t a common name—and it’s in the telephone book. It would have been very easy for someone to come along here and search while you and Miss Maine were out and the unreliable Rosa not yet arrived. I don’t know that that was what happened, but it might have been.”

  “But why? How could anybody have known that he’d scribbled in that book?”

  “I don’t know, but the fact that Greville had a book with your name written in it might have suggested an exchange to somebody else, just as it did to me. I’ll do my best to have you looked after, but please be very sensible. Don’t go strolling around in lonely places: travel by bus for the time being—I’m a great believer in busses.”

  Sally laughed. “All right—but it all seems so mad.”

  “Madness can be pretty grim,” said Macdonald. “I’m going to send a man along to improve the catches on your windows. Also, I’d like one of our women officers to give your Rosa the once-over. Rosa has a latchkey, I take it?”

  “Of course. She’s got to get in. She had a good reference—I wrote about it.”

  “To whom?”

  “Oh, a Mrs. Moore, in Finchley Road: about two thousand Finchley Road—it’s an awful road, it goes on and on. But I’ve got the letter . . . oh dear, you’re making me suspicious of everything. If that letter’s gone, it must have been Rosa.”

  She jumped up and ran across the room to her bedroom, returning a moment later. “It has gone: that’s what she went to my desk for, so I couldn’t check up. . . . I expect she answered my letter herself.”

  “Well, don’t worry about Rosa. I’ve got an officer outside in my car who will come and wait to see if Rosa turns up.”

  Sally sat curled up in her chair, very intent, flushed, and bright-eyed. “I hope it was Rosa who took the Penguins too,” she said, “but I do wish I could remember what Richard scrawled in his . . . I wonder if hypnotism would bring it back.”

  “What on earth do you mean?” demanded Macdonald.

  “Don’t sound so scornful. It’s quite scientific. If you’ve once seen a thing, you don’t forget it for quite some time, it just goes into your subconscious: an analyst can help you to fish it out again by suggesting to you under hypnosis that you can remember it if you only connect things up properly—memory’s a sort of chain, everything’s linked up.”

  “So it may be, and hypnotism may be quite scientific, as you say, but I don’t want you to invoke that sort of science on our account,” replied Macdonald.

  “Sheer prejudice!” said Sally. “I’m glad you said that. It makes me feel less inferior.”

  “I am a hidebound reactionary and quite unrepentant about it,” said Macdonald. “I am now going to introduce you to a very efficient young C.I.D. officer—Miss Jean Waring. We will leave her here to consider Rosa, and I will drive you to Wimpole Street to cope with the neglected mail.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MACDONALD had meant to spend the morning with Brian Salcombe, but when Sally Dillon’s message reached him, the chief inspector changed his plans. Thus Brian found himself in the company of Inspector Jenkins, a stout, cheerful man who had grown grey in the service of the C.I.D. Jenkins’s retiring age had overtaken him some time ago, but Jenkins didn’t want to retire, and Macdonald didn’t want to lose him: stout Jenkins undoubtedly was, and a slow mover these days, but his long experience and shrewd judgment made up for his decreasing mobility, and nobody at C.O. had as long a memory as Jenkins concerning the methods, characters, and peculiarities of the old lag class—the recidivists, whose motto was an inveterate: “Next time lucky.”

  Jenkins first took Brian to St. Monica’s Hospital, Paddington. They left Scotland Yard in a police car, and Jenkins kept up a non-stop commentary on London past and present, interspersed with beguiling reminiscences of his own career in the detection of crime.

  Brian had started out feeling worried and depressed, but he soon forgot his depression in lively interest and eventual amusement at this unusual—and unorthodox—commentator.

  In the shining corridors of St. Monica’s, Brian felt depression shutting down on him again: he hated the smell of hospital, the glimpse of ranks of beds and white faces, the trolleys which passed them on the way to the theatre.

  Jenkins gripped the lad’s arm firmly: “Appendicitis,” he murmured. “Wonderful, isn’t it. They do ‘em in dozens, regiments of them, so to speak. Nobody had ever heard of it when I was a nipper. It was Edward VII started it, and it’s just gone on. I often wonder if it’s all my eye. To the right here—ah, good morning, Sister: does me good to see all you girls looking so fresh and bonny. How’s our patient?”

  “From our point of view, he’s doing wonderfully,” replied Sister, and Jenkins said:

  “That’s fine. This is a friend of his, come all the way up from Devon: can he just have a peep?”

  “Yes, of course. You know he’s still unconscious, don’t you?—and very quietly, please. You see, we still don’t know much about unconsciousness, but we do believe that quietness is essential.”

  Brian stood and looked down at the bandaged head: with a stubble of reddish beard on the pallid chin, the lips relaxed, the nose pinched and jutting, it was difficult to recognise Dick. Then Brian saw his hands, and knew them at once: he had often noticed the contrast between Dick’s long fingers and his own hamlike fists. He stood there wishing with all his heart he could convey his own thoughts to that silent,
motionless form on the bed.

  Then the sister touched his arm, and with downcast eyes Brian tiptoed back to the door, careful not to glance at the other beds. The door swung silently to behind them and Sister said:

  “I know he looks terribly ill to you, hardly alive: but he’s very much alive. When I take his pulse I marvel at the steadiness of it, the way his heart is going on doing its job, and his lungs as well. He hasn’t had any of the troubles we often get with head injuries. His mind is asleep, but his body is busy with mending itself.”

  Brian brushed his hand across his eyes. “Thank you for saying that. It’s so queer to see Dick like that: we’re farmers, both of us, and he looks a real tough on a tractor.”

  “How nice to have a farmer here,” she said. “He must be the first farmer I’ve ever had here.”

  Jenkins’s low voice rumbled beside him: “Fine healthy lot, farmers. If I had my time over again I’d farm myself. Thank you kindly, Sister. God bless you.”

  They went down again to the busy entrance hall and Brian turned to Jenkins. “It’s Dick, all right. No mistake about that, but . . . oh Lord . . .”

  “Don’t you go getting miserable,” said Jenkins as they went back to the car. “He’s alive—and you know the old adage. Now the next chap I’m asking you to have a look at isn’t alive. He’s on a mortuary slab. To the best of our belief he travelled in the same compartment as Greville did, from Reading to Paddington, and Greville spoke to him just as the train stopped. This chap was picked up on the line, having fallen out of a train. We want you to tell us if you’ve ever seen him before.”

  It was only a short distance between the hospital and the mortuary and before they went in Jenkins put a firm hand on Brian’s shoulder.

  “You won’t like what you’re going to see: they’ve done their best to make the face presentable and recognisable, but the fact remains that what you’re going to see is ugly—very ugly. If you feel upset about it, just remember what that hospital sister said about your mate—‘His mind’s asleep, but his body is busy mending itself.’ ”

  Brian stood and looked down at the form on the slab, trying to control his own instinctive recoil—and fear. He knew he was afraid: this was the first time he had ever looked on a dead face, and this face had none of the peace and smiling dignity of death. But after the first moment of horror, Brian’s mind accepted the thing as a thing, having no more connection with life than the dead beasts he had sometimes to deal with. He looked steadily, and then turned away.

  “I can’t tell you,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before, but I can’t swear to it. Even if I had ever seen him alive, I couldn’t tell now.”

  “That’s all right. I didn’t expect anything else, but there was just a chance,” said Jenkins.

  They went out again into the cold air, and Brian drew in a deep breath, thankful to be rid of the smell of the mortuary, at once antiseptic and tainted.

  “Is there a madman around?” he asked Jenkins. “Some lunatic who’s got a kink which makes him kill? That chap—and Dick—it’s crazy.”

  “Depends on what you mean by crazy,” replied Jenkins. “To our way of thinking there’s method in the business—in both cases. Now I’m going to brief you for the next part of the job.”

  2

  Macdonald drove Sally Dillon to Wimpole Street and during the drive he got her to talk about the journey up from Devon, in particular trying to find out if she had noticed anybody in the corridor when she had stood there smoking before the train ran into Paddington. Again what Sally remembered corroborated Weldon’s impressions. There had been one heavy, middle-aged man who looked “dirty and shoddy.” He had passed up and down the corridor more than once, but each time she had flattened herself against the window, and had not turned her head to look at him, but there had also been another man of similar age and build who looked “respectable”: he also had passed her more than once.

  “How were they dressed?” asked Macdonald. The “dirty one,” she thought, had worn a raincoat, soiled and nondescript, with a cap and muffler: the other a big topcoat, tweedy in quality and a felt hat—“a squashy hat,” said Sally, “but I didn’t really look at them,” she added. “I know they were both large and I wished they’d go back to their places because corridors are narrow. They probably wished the same of me. Have you found out who the writing lady was—the large lady in the corner?”

  “No. Not yet. She was noticed at Exeter Station, but she wasn’t known there.”

  “I expect she gets so immersed in her writing that she’s above reading newspapers or listening to the radio,” said Sally. “I met a novelist in Devon once and she made an absolute cult of disregarding newspapers and wireless: she said she concentrated on her own work to the exclusion of all else.”

  “Did you ever read any of her books?” asked Macdonald.

  “I tried—but they defeated me completely: they never got anywhere. I like a story to my novels—a beginning and a middle and an ending.”

  For the last few minutes of the drive she chattered on cheerfully and Macdonald was glad that she showed no tendency to “concentrate” exclusively on the story into whose midst she had been drawn by the chance choice of a seat in the train. When they arrived at Dr. Garstang’s, Sally hurried off to deal with the neglected letters: Macdonald sat in the waiting room until Garstang had dismissed his patient, and then went to the consulting room, where he told Garstang the gist of the evidence obtained in Devon.

  “It’s an intensely interesting story, and a very unusual one,” said Garstang. “I only hope I shall be able to see the boy if he recovers.”

  “Are you quite sure you haven’t seen him?” asked Macdonald. “One of the more surprising facts that emerged eventually was that Greville had been given your name as a consulting psychiatrist and he intended to come to you.”

  Garstang sat very still, studying Macdonald with a steady, penetrating gaze, and it was some moments before he replied: “That’s very remarkable,” he said quietly. “Can you tell me any more about the circumstances in which he learnt my name?”

  3

  “Well, that seems to clear things up to some extent,” said Garstang a few moments later. “Harvey, the M.O. of the X Group, R.A.C., is an old friend of mine. About six weeks ago he wrote to me saying that a lad he was interested in, a National Service man, might be coming to me for treatment. Here’s his letter—he writes an abominable fist. The name he gives might be Greville—once you know the name you can make the letters out: if you didn’t know the name his scrawl might convey anything.”

  Macdonald sat and studied the M.O.‘s letter.

  “. . . He’s a fine lad and a good soldier,” wrote Harvey, “but there’s obviously some psychological trouble. I had him in the sick bay to treat a damaged knee but I couldn’t get him to talk. Another chap, who once lived in the same district, tells me that Greville lost his memory when he was a child—after results of the blitz Anyway, his particular pal came to me last night and asked if I could tell him of a psychologist—no explanation given for the request—but he didn’t want a Service practitioner. So I think it’s probable Greville will make an appointment with you when he’s in England again after demob. I shall be interested to know what you make of him.”

  Garstang spoke again as Macdonald glanced up: “Harvey’s a very good M.O. Conscientious and skilful, but his letters are always the same—garbled and muddled. I filed the letter in case the chap turned up, and then thought no more about it—but that’s the explanation of Greville having been given my name. Harvey gave it to the other fellow—Salcombe.”

  Macdonald nodded. The explanation was simple enough, but the chief inspector was conscious of a sense of tension in Garstang’s attitude: meeting that deliberately intent gaze, Macdonald found himself wondering if the psychologist were trying to read his mind—or trying to influence his mind: whatever it was, the result was curiously uncomfortable.

  Almost as though he were aware of Macdonal
d’s thoughts, Garstang went on: “I’d like to get this thing straight. I want to help you in this enquiry, and I can’t if you don’t trust me. May I tell you a bit about my own personal history? I think it will do something to explain why Harvey wanted that boy to consult me.”

  “By all means,” agreed Macdonald.

  “I was born in Germany in 1903,” began Garstang. “My father was a German, my mother an Englishwoman. My father was a doctor of medicine, but he was also a student of the psychological methods developed in Vienna under Freud and Adler and Jung. He was a humane man and he had a horror of war. When he realised in 1914 that war with England was inevitable, he persuaded my mother to go to America and to take me with her. He himself volunteered as an army doctor and was killed in 1915. My mother was unhappy in America and in 1919 contrived to get permission to come to England to live with her own people. The vessel we sailed on struck a mine in a storm and sank. My mother was drowned and I was saved. I arrived in England at the age of sixteen and lived with my mother’s family in the north, eventually becoming a naturalised British subject and taking my mother’s maiden name.”

  Garstang stopped here and looked at Macdonald with a half smile. “You may wonder why I have inflicted you with that history, but I think you will agree that it makes me a suitable practitioner to treat young Greville. You have told me about his experience in Germany, about his recognition of the language, his memory of a certain house in Cologne. I was born a German: as a child I lived in Cologne.”

  “Yes. I appreciate your point,” replied Macdonald, and Garstang went on quickly:

  “I knew you would, because you are a reasonable and highly intelligent man: but because detection is your business you are bound to suspect all contacts in your cases, much as a doctor must suspect contacts with infectious disease. I have told you what was the probable reason underlying Harvey’s recommendation of myself as a psychiatrist, for I am pretty certain he had observed Greville much more closely than the latter realised. I have also told you that Greville has not consulted me. If you suggest I might have connected the boy whom Sarah Dillon described with the boy mentioned in Harvey’s letter, I can only say that such a thing didn’t occur to me. But apart from my own statements, isn’t there any way of ridding your mind of a suspicion which can only be a hindrance to you?”