A week passed. The inquest had thrown no light upon the matter and had been adjourned for further evidence. Stackhurst had made discreet inquiry about his subordinate, and there had been a superficial search of his room, but without result. Personally, I had gone over the whole ground again, both physically and mentally, but with no new conclusions. In all my chronicles the reader will find no case which brought me so completely to the limit of my powers. Even my imagination could conceive no solution to the mystery. And then there came the incident of the dog.
It was my old housekeeper who heard of it first by that strange wireless by which such people collect the news of the countryside.
‘Sad story this, sir, about Mr McPherson’s dog,’ said she one evening.
I do not encourage such conversations, but the words arrested my attention.
‘What of Mr McPherson’s dog?’
‘Dead, sir. Died of grief for its master.’
‘Who told you this?’
‘Why, sir, everyone is talking of it. It took on terrible, and has eaten nothing for a week. Then today two of the young gentlemen from The Gables found it dead – down on the beach, sir, at the very place where its master met his end.’
‘At the very place.’ The words stood out clear in my memory. Some dim perception that the matter was vital rose in my mind. That the dog should die was after the beautiful, faithful nature of dogs. But ‘in the very place’! Why should this lonely beach be fatal to it? Was it possible that it also had been sacrificed to some revengeful feud? Was it possible—? Yes, the perception was dim, but already something was building up in my mind. In a few minutes I was on my way to The Gables, where I found Stackhurst in his study. At my request he sent for Sudbury and Blount, the two students who had found the dog.
‘Yes, it lay on the very edge of the pool,’ said one of them. ‘It must have followed the trail of its dead master.’
I saw the faithful little creature, an Airedale terrier, laid out upon the mat in the hall. The body was stiff and rigid, the eyes projecting, and the limbs contorted. There was agony in every line of it.
From The Gables I walked down to the bathing-pool. The sun had sunk and the shadow of the great cliff lay black across the water, which glimmered dully like a sheet of lead. The place was deserted and there was no sign of life save for two sea-birds circling and screaming overhead. In the fading light I could dimly make out the little dog’s spoor upon the sand round the very rock on which his master’s towel had been laid. For a long time I stood in deep meditation while the shadows grew darker around me. My mind was filled with racing thoughts. You have known what it was to be in a nightmare in which you feel that there is some all-important thing for which you search and which you know is there, though it remains forever just beyond your reach. That was how I felt that evening as I stood alone by that place of death. Then at last I turned and walked slowly homeward.
I had just reached the top of the path when it came to me. Like a flash, I remembered the thing for which I had so eagerly and vainly grasped. You will know, or Watson has written in vain, that I hold a vast store of out-of-the-way knowledge without scientific system, but very available for the needs of my work. My mind is like a crowded box-room with packets of all sorts stowed away therein – so many that I may well have but a vague perception of what was there. I had known that there was something which might bear upon this matter. It was still vague, but at least I knew how I could make it clear. It was monstrous, incredible, and yet it was always a possibility. I would test it to the full.
There is a great garret in my little house which is stuffed with books. It was into this that I plunged and rummaged for an hour. At the end of that time I emerged with a little chocolate and silver volume. Eagerly I turned up the chapter of which I had a dim remembrance. Yes, it was indeed a farfetched and unlikely proposition, and yet I could not be at rest until I had made sure if it might, indeed, be so. It was late when I retired, with my mind eagerly awaiting the work of the morrow.
But that work met with an annoying interruption. I had hardly swallowed my early cup of tea and was starting for the beach when I had a call from Inspector Bardle of the Sussex Constabulary – a steady, solid, bovine man with thoughtful eyes, which looked at me now with a very troubled expression.
‘I know your immense experience, sir,’ said he. ‘This is quite unofficial, of course, and need go no farther. But I am fairly up against it in this McPherson case. The question is, shall I make an arrest, or shall I not?’
‘Meaning Mr Ian Murdoch?’
‘Yes, sir. There is really no one else when you come to think of it. That’s the advantage of this solitude. We narrow it down to a very small compass. If he did not do it, then who did?’
‘What have you against him?’
He had gleaned along the same furrows as I had. There was Murdoch’s character and the mystery which seemed to hang round the man. His furious bursts of temper, as shown in the incident of the dog. The fact that he had quarrelled with McPherson in the past, and that there was some reason to think that he might have resented his attentions to Miss Bellamy. He had all my points, but no fresh ones, save that Murdoch seemed to be making every preparation for departure.
‘What would my position be if I let him slip away with all this evidence against him?’ The burly, phlegmatic man was sorely troubled in his mind.
‘Consider,’ I said, ‘all the essential gaps in your case. On the morning of the crime he can surely prove an alibi. He had been with his scholars till the last moment, and within a few minutes of McPherson’s appearance he came upon us from behind. Then bear in mind the absolute impossibility that he could single-handed have inflicted this outrage upon a man quite as strong as himself. Finally, there is this question of the instrument with which these injuries were inflicted.’
‘What could it be but a scourge or flexible whip of some sort?’
‘Have you examined the marks?’ I asked.
‘I have seen them. So has the doctor.’
‘But I have examined them very carefully with a lens. They have peculiarities.’
‘What are they, Mr Holmes?’
I stepped to my bureau and brought out an enlarged photograph. ‘This is my method in such cases,’ I explained.
‘You certainly do things thoroughly, Mr Holmes.’
‘I should hardly be what I am if I did not. Now let us consider this weal which extends round the right shoulder. Do you observe nothing remarkable?’
‘I can’t say I do.’
‘Surely it is evident that it is unequal in its intensity. There is a dot of extravasated blood here, and another there. There are similar indications in this other weal down here. What can that mean?’
‘I have no idea. Have you?’
‘Perhaps I have. Perhaps I haven’t. I may be able to say more soon. Anything which will define what made that mark will bring us a long way towards the criminal.’
‘It is, of course, an absurd idea,’ said the policeman, ‘but if a red-hot net of wire had been laid across the back, then these better-marked points would represent where the meshes crossed each other.’
‘A most ingenious comparison. Or shall we say a very stiff cat-o’-nine-tails with small hard knots upon it?’
‘By Jove, Mr Holmes, I think you have hit it.’
‘Or there may be some very different cause, Mr Bardle. But your case is far too weak for an arrest. Besides, we have those last words – “the Lion’s Mane”.’
‘I have wondered whether Ian—’
‘Yes, I have considered that. If the second word had borne any resemblance to Murdoch – but it did not. He gave it almost in a shriek. I am sure that it was “Mane”.’
‘Have you no alternative, Mr Holmes?’
‘Perhaps I have. But I do not care to discuss it until there is something more solid to discuss.’
‘And when will that be?’
‘In an hour – possibly less.’
The inspector rub
bed his chin and looked at me with dubious eyes.
‘I wish I could see what was in your mind, Mr Holmes. Perhaps it’s those fishing-boats.’
‘No, no, they were too far out.’
‘Well, then, is it Bellamy and that big son of his? They were not too sweet upon Mr McPherson. Could they have done him a mischief?’
‘No, no, you won’t draw me until I am ready,’ said I with a smile. ‘Now, Inspector, we each have our own work to do. Perhaps if you were to meet me here at midday—’
So far we had got when there came the tremendous interruption which was the beginning of the end.
My outer door was flung open, there were blundering footsteps in the passage, and Ian Murdoch staggered into the room, pallid, dishevelled, his clothes in wild disorder, clawing with his bony hands at the furniture to hold himself erect. ‘Brandy! Brandy!’ he gasped, and fell groaning upon the sofa.
He was not alone. Behind him came Stackhurst, hatless and panting, almost as distrait as his companion.
‘Yes, yes, brandy!’ he cried. ‘The man is at his last gasp. It was all I could do to bring him here. He fainted twice upon the way.’
Half a tumbler of the raw spirit brought about a wondrous change. He pushed himself up on one arm and swung his coat from his shoulders. ‘For God’s sake oil, opium, morphia!’ he cried. ‘Anything to ease this infernal agony!’
The inspector and I cried out at the sight. There, crisscrossed upon the man’s naked shoulder, was the same strange reticulated pattern of red, inflamed lines which had been the death-mark of Fitzroy McPherson.
The pain was evidently terrible and was more than local, for the sufferer’s breathing would stop for a time, his face would turn black, and then with loud gasps he would clap his hand to his heart, while his brow dropped beads of sweat. At any moment he might die. More and more brandy was poured down his throat, each fresh dose bringing him back to life. Pads of cotton-wool soaked in salad-oil seemed to take the agony from the strange wounds. At last his head fell heavily upon the cushion. Exhausted Nature had taken refuge in its last storehouse of vitality. It was half a sleep and half a faint, but at least it was ease from pain.
To question him had been impossible, but the moment we were assured of his condition Stackhurst turned upon me.
‘My God!’ he cried, ‘what is it, Holmes? What is it?’
‘Where did you find him?’
‘Down on the beach. Exactly where poor McPherson met his end. If this man’s heart had been weak as McPherson’s was, he would not be here now. More than once I thought he was gone as I brought him up. It was too far to The Gables, so I made for you.’
‘Did you see him on the beach?’
‘I was walking on the cliff when I heard his cry. He was at the edge of the water, reeling about like a drunken man. I ran down, threw some clothes about him, and brought him up. For heaven’s sake, Holmes, use all the powers you have and spare no pains to lift the curse from this place, for life is becoming unendurable. Can you, with all your world-wide reputation, do nothing for us?’
‘I think I can, Stackhurst. Come with me now! And you, Inspector, come along! We will see if we cannot deliver this murderer into your hands.’
Leaving the unconscious man in the charge of my housekeeper, we all three went down to the deadly lagoon. On the shingle there was piled a little heap of towels and clothes left by the stricken man. Slowly I walked round the edge of the water, my comrades in Indian file behind me. Most of the pool was quite shallow, but under the cliff where the beach was hollowed out it was four or five feet deep. It was to this part that a swimmer would naturally go, for it formed a beautiful pellucid green pool as clear as crystal. A line of rocks lay above it at the base of the cliff, and along this I led the way, peering eagerly into the depths beneath me. I had reached the deepest and stillest pool when my eyes caught that for which they were searching, and I burst into a shout of triumph.
‘Cyanea!’ I cried. ‘Cyanea! Behold the Lion’s Mane!’
The strange object at which I pointed did indeed look like a tangled mass torn from the mane of a lion. It lay upon a rocky shelf some three feet under the water, a curious waving, vibrating, hairy creature with streaks of silver among its yellow tresses. It pulsated with a slow, heavy dilation and contraction.
‘It has done mischief enough. Its day is over!’ I cried. ‘Help me, Stackhurst! Let us end the murderer for ever.’
There was a big boulder just above the ledge, and we pushed it until it fell with a tremendous splash into the water. When the ripples had cleared we saw that it had settled upon the ledge below. One flapping edge of yellow membrane showed that our victim was beneath it. A thick oily scum oozed out from below the stone and stained the water round, rising slowly to the surface.
‘Well, this gets me!’ cried the inspector. ‘What was it, Mr Holmes? I’m born and bred in these parts, but I never saw such a thing. It don’t belong to Sussex.’
‘Just as well for Sussex,’ I remarked. ‘It may have been the southwest gale that brought it up. Come back to my house, both of you, and I will give you the terrible experience of one who has good reason to remember his own meeting with the same peril of the seas.’
When we reached my study we found that Murdoch was so far recovered that he could sit up. He was dazed in mind, and every now and then was shaken by a paroxysm of pain. In broken words he explained that he had no notion what had occurred to him, save that terrific pangs had suddenly shot through him, and that it had taken all his fortitude to reach the bank.
‘Here is a book,’ I said, taking up the little volume, ‘which first brought light into what might have been forever dark. It is Out of Doors, by the famous observer J.G. Wood. Wood himself very nearly perished from contact with this vile creature, so he wrote with a very full knowledge. Cyanea capillata is the miscreant’s full name, and he can be as dangerous to life as, and far more painful than, the bite of the cobra. Let me briefly give this extract.
‘If the bather should see a loose roundish mass of tawny membranes and fibres, something like very large handfuls of lion’s mane and silver paper, let him beware, for this is the fearful stinger, Cyanea capillata.
‘Could our sinister acquaintance be more clearly described?
‘He goes on to tell of his own encounter with one when swimming off the coast of Kent. He found that the creature radiated almost invisible filaments to the distance of fifty feet, and that anyone within that circumference from the deadly centre was in danger of death. Even at a distance the effect upon Wood was almost fatal.
‘The multitudinous threads caused light scarlet lines upon the skin which on closer examination resolved into minute dots or pustules, each dot charged as it were with a red-hot needle making its way through the nerves.
‘The local pain was, as he explains, the least part of the exquisite torment.
‘Pangs shot through the chest, causing me to fall as if struck by a bullet. The pulsation would cease, and then the heart would give six or seven leaps as if it would force its way through the chest.
‘It nearly killed him, although he had only been exposed to it in the disturbed ocean and not in the narrow calm waters of a bathing-pool. He says that he could hardly recognise himself afterwards, so white, wrinkled and shrivelled was his face. He gulped down brandy, a whole bottleful, and it seems to have saved his life. There is the book, Inspector. I leave it with you, and you cannot doubt that it contains a full explanation of the tragedy of poor McPherson.’
‘And incidentally exonerates me,’ remarked Ian Murdoch with a wry smile. ‘I do not blame you, Inspector, nor you, Mr Holmes, for your suspicions were natural. I feel that on the very eve of my arrest I have only cleared myself by sharing the fate of my poor friend.’
‘No, Mr Murdoch. I was already upon the track, and had I been out as early as I intended I might well have saved you from this terrific experience.’
‘But how did you know, Mr Holmes?’
‘I am an omni
vorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles. That phrase “the Lion’s Mane” haunted my mind. I knew that I had seen it somewhere in an unexpected context. You have seen that it does describe the creature. I have no doubt that it was floating on the water when McPherson saw it, and that this phrase was the only one by which he could convey to us a warning as to the creature which had been his death.’
‘Then I, at least, am cleared,’ said Murdoch, rising slowly to his feet. ‘There are one or two words of explanation which I should give, for I know the direction in which your inquiries have run. It is true that I loved this lady, but from the day when she chose my friend McPherson my one desire was to help her to happiness. I was well content to stand aside and act as their go-between. Often I carried their messages, and it was because I was in their confidence and because she was so dear to me that I hastened to tell her of my friend’s death, lest someone should forestall me in a more sudden and heartless manner. She would not tell you, sir, of our relations lest you should disapprove and I might suffer. But with your leave I must try to get back to The Gables, for my bed will be very welcome.’
Stackhurst held out his hand. ‘Our nerves have all been at concert-pitch,’ said he. ‘Forgive what is past, Murdoch. We shall understand each other better in the future.’ They passed out together with their arms linked in friendly fashion. The inspector remained, staring at me in silence with his ox-like eyes.
‘Well, you’ve done it!’ he cried at last. ‘I had read of you, but I never believed it. It’s wonderful!’
I was forced to shake my head. To accept such praise was to lower one’s own standards.
‘I was slow at the outset – culpably slow. Had the body been found in the water I could hardly have missed it. It was the towel which misled me. The poor fellow had never thought to dry himself, and so I in turn was led to believe that he had never been in the water. Why, then, should the attack of any water creature suggest itself to me? That was where I went astray. Well, well, Inspector, I often ventured to chaff you gentlemen of the police force, but Cyanea capillata very nearly avenged Scotland Yard.’
Murder in Midsummer Page 5
