The Seven of Calvary

by Anthony Boucher

Sergeamt Cutting looked like a policeman and talked like a gentleman. He arrived at the hospital about ten minutes before Paul’s death and closeted himself almost at once with Dr. Evans and Dr. Griswold.

  The two policemen who had accompanied him remained in the hall. “You’d better all stick around,” one of them said. “The Sergeant’s got a lot of questions to ask.” With which he relapsed into silence.

  It was a grotesque group that waited in the mercilessly white hall. The young interne and the policemen in the uniforms of their respective professions … Martin looking strangely helpless and forlorn for all the bravado of his sixteenth-century doublet, hose, and beard … Cynthia weak from crying, her eyes swollen and all her claims to exoticism vanished for the moment.… Only Alex and Mona looked quietly ordinary, and even they showed manifest signs of sorrow and discomfort.

  Sergeant Cutting had been gone five minutes when the young interne had his inspiration. “Officer,” he suggested, “would it be all right if I offered these people a drink of whiskey? They’ve been through an awful shock, you know, and I think it would really help when it comes around to the Sergeant’s questioning.”

  The two policemen looked at each other dubiously, and finally the more loquacious of the pair (the one who had actually spoken once before) said, “I guess it’ll be okay.”

  Martin was grateful for the whiskey. The hospital’s stock (for medicinal use only) was fine bonded bourbon, far better than he was accustomed to, and his twisted nerves began to straighten themselves out. Everyone, even the policemen, seemed to feel the same beneficial effect; and when the interne topped his hospitality by producing cigarettes, there was a general unbending. The group was still relatively silent, but when Sergeant Cutting returned, the heavy atmosphere of dread had been largely dispelled.

  His first words sufficed to restore it. “Mr. Lennox is dead,” he told them quietly. Martin could see that he was watching their faces closely. The announcement was received in silence, save for a choked gasp from Cynthia. They had known that Paul must die; the exact news of his death meant little.

  “Poor fellow …” said Alex softly.

  Sergeant Cutting turned to one of his men. “You know where Wheeler Auditorium is, Davis?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, get on over there right away. I’ve phoned the station; they’re sending three more men out. See that nothing’s disturbed, and hold anybody that’s still there for questioning.”

  “Yes, sir.” And Davis left.

  “I’ll have to ask the rest of you to stay here a while,” Sergeant Cutting continued in the same calm and pleasing voice; “I’ll want to ask you a few questions. Dr. Evans is letting me use his office; I’ll see you in there one at a time. First of all, I’m going to tell you this: According to Dr. Griswold, the idea seemed to get around that Mr. Lennox’s death was accidental. I warn you now, it was murder.”

  Again Sergeant Cutting was disappointed, if he had expected any spectacular and informative reactions. To Martin the fact was no news; and the other three, knowing Martin as well as they did, could never for a moment have entertained the accident theory.

  “I’ll talk to you first, Mr. Lamb,” added the Sergeant after a brief pause. “You must have been with him when he was poisoned.” He led the way into a little office, and Martin began to wish that the interne had suggested a second round of whiskey.

  The Sergeant seated himself at Dr. Evans’ desk and waved Martin to a chair. Their respective positions reminded Martin curiously of his sessions with Dr. Ashwin.

  “You were a close friend of Mr. Lennox?” Sergeant Cutting began, after the formalities of name and address.

  “As close as anyone was.”

  “Mm … Will you please tell me, Mr. Lamb, just what happened on the stage of Wheeler Auditorium?”

  Martin described the scene, the drinking of the pseudo-sherry, and Paul’s delivery of his big speech. “It is a long speech,” he said. “It must have been about five minutes after he took the drink that I noticed the beginning of the strychnine convulsions.” And he continued to describe, as best he could, the rest of that terrible scene, reserving for the moment any mention of the Seven of Calvary.

  “Mr. Lamb …” Sergeant Cutting paused. “You said ‘strychnine convulsions.’ I told you only that Mr. Lennox had been poisoned.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s nothing suspicious. As I looked back, I recognized the symptoms, and Dr. Griswold confirmed my recognition.”

  “And how do you happen to be so familiar with the symptoms of strychnine poisoning?”

  “Harmless again. I’m a devoted reader of mystery novels and dabble a bit in criminology and toxicology.”

  “You’ve read too many mystery novels, Mr. Lamb,” Sergeant Cutting smiled, “if you think that I’m trying to trap you or jump to conclusions. Now, have you any idea when that poison could have been administered?”

  “I think in that glass of stage sherry. I don’t know how else. It couldn’t have been more than an hour or so before the convulsions. The water we drink backstage is from drinking fountains, and Paul wasn’t taking any liquor—he was afraid it might make him muff his performance.”

  “Mr. Lennox did not leave the auditorium?”

  “Not since eight o’clock. He couldn’t have. The time he wasn’t on the stage—and it’s a prominent starring part—he had costume changes that took every minute of it.”

  “Good. That’s a helpful point.” Sergeant Cutting lit a cigarette and passed one to Martin. “This glass—what was supposed to be in it?”

  “Colored water—not very tasty. Drexel spent almost an hour doctoring a solution to the color he thought was right for sherry.”

  “Drexel?”

  “Lawrence Drexel. Little Theatre Director. He tried iced tea first, but its color struck him as aesthetically wrong.”

  “Damn Mr. Drexel’s aesthetic sensibilities, if you will forgive me, Mr. Lamb. You realize of course that tannic acid is an antidote for strychnine, and that Mr. Lennox might be alive now if Drexel had used iced tea. Where was this solution kept?”

  “You’ll have to ask the prop-man. I don’t know. The glasses were filled and set on a table back-stage before the third act began.”

  “The glasses?”

  “There was supposed to be another one. It was broken by accident.”

  Sergeant Cutting looked a trifle quizzical as he made his notes. “Who could have put the poison in that glass?”

  “Anyone. Dozens of people were backstage before the third act. I was near that table myself most of the time, but I wouldn’t necessarily have noticed it.”

  “Whom did you see particularly near that table?”

  Martin blinked slightly at the whom (“Only in the Berkeley police force …” he thought), but answered, “A group of my friends. The four people outside—Dr. Griswold, Mr. Bruce, Miss Wood, and Miss Morales—and Dr. Leshin of the History department and his wife.”

  “What connection did any of these people have with Mr. Lennox?”

  Martin paused imperceptibly. “We all knew him,” he said, “except possibly Dr. Griswold. He and Mr. Bruce and I have been boon companions at various times. Miss Wood is Mr. Bruce’s fiancée and knew Paul only through him, so far as I know. Dr. Leshin is in the same department—History—that Paul teaches … taught in. Miss Morales and Mrs. Leshin have met him at parties and things.”

  Sergeant Cutting looked up from his notes. “You described yourself as a devoted reader of mystery novels, Mr. Lamb. Doubtless you’ve been waiting on tenterhooks for this question, so I’d better ask it. Do you know any reason for which anyone would kill Mr. Lennox?”

  “Sergeant Cutting,” Martin replied, “first I want to tell you one more thing about this evening. After Paul had fallen and people were rushing around, I saw a piece of paper on the table where the glass had been. It had the same mark on it as you and your men found beside Dr. Schaedel’s body.”

  The Sergeant looked up with an
expression of frank surprise and interest, which suddenly turned into a laugh. “Mr. Lamb,” he said, “that’s absurd. Utterly absurd. You’ve confessed yourself to a mystery-novel mind; it’s simply run away with you. What possible connection could there be between Mr. Lennox and a Swiss secret society—if such a society ever existed in the first place?”

  “Just this,” Martin answered quietly. He was not surprised by the Sergeant’s reaction. “It was Paul Lennox who furnished indirectly all the information that was printed about the Seven of Calvary. And he told us that his life would not be safe if the Vignards knew he had revealed their secrets.”

  “Of course you can substantiate that?”

  “Five or six of us heard him.”

  “We’ll check it.… But do you know of any other—I shan’t say more plausible, but any more personal motive that anyone could have for killing Paul Lennox?”

  “No,” said Martin.

  Martin awoke about eleven the next morning. His first thought, after a glance at the unset alarm clock, was regret that he was missing Ashwin’s class for the first time. Then all the memories of the past night came over him. He sat up in bed, shuddered slightly, and reached for a cigarette.

  After his questioning by the Sergeant, he had waited in the hall, under the watchful eye of the remaining policeman, to see Mona home. Her interrogation had been the last and the briefest. He remembered Alex walking in and out of Dr. Evans’ office with an imperturbable calm almost worthy of Paul himself. He remembered half-stifled sobs from the office during Cynthia’s interview, and wondered just what Sergeant Cutting had learned from her. The young interne had obligingly produced cold cream and alcohol, and Martin had spent most of the time during the others’ sessions in removing beard, spirit gum, and grease-paint from his face. When at last he escorted Mona home, he looked an ordinary twentieth-century young man again, despite doublet and hose. And to crown this evening of Spanish melodrama, sudden death, and suspicion, he remembered kissing Mona goodnight, quite as though it were the most natural thing on earth to do (as indeed it was), and remembered her cool voice whispering, “Much nicer without the beard.”

  But even at such a sweet memory as this, the prickings of his conscience returned to bother him. Should he have told Sergeant Cutting what he knew of the complex emotional relations of Paul Lennox with Cynthia, Alex, and the Leshins? It was obviously of the greatest importance, and yet … what evidence did he have for it? A few words of Cynthia’s while drunk and amorous, an embrace in a dark hallway, an atmosphere of tenseness under the casual speeches of two women—the Sergeant would probably have found the idea only a trifle less amusing than the appearance of the Seven of Calvary.

  And as to the carefully evolved Ashwinian theory that Dr. Hugo Schaedel had been killed (as was now apparent) in error for Paul Lennox—what would that amount to in a police court? It was so completely obvious, and yet what proof was there? It was, Martin thought, like the rabbit which the Hindus see in the moon. It is next to impossible to make people see it; but once they have recognized it, they will never see a face or a man or a woman there again. It is obvious that there is a rabbit in the moon; but obviousness seems too often unsusceptible of proof.

  As Martin was thus easing his conscience, he heard a sound which for a moment terrified him. Someone was moving around in the room next to his—the room which had once been that of Paul Lennox. It was not the maid; those were a man’s footsteps—or was it two men? Martin’s first instinctive fear passed almost instantly into curiosity. He threw on his bathrobe, slipped his feet into a pair of slippers, and tiptoed into the hall. He paused a moment before the door to which Paul’s card was still affixed. The footsteps were in there definitely—two pairs of male feet. As Martin stood wavering, the door opened and he was face to face with Sergeant Cutting.

  “Good morning, Mr. Lamb. I was just going to knock on your door again. You seem a heavy sleeper.”

  Martin was too surprised to reply at first, and then suddenly realized how natural it was that the police should search Paul’s quarters.

  “Come in,” Sergeant Cutting continued. “I have several things to tell and to ask you.”

  Martin obeyed, seating himself reluctantly on the edge of the bed. The room was in a topsyturvy state of search. Davis, the more voluble policeman, was at the moment silently examining the record albums—with what hopes, Martin had no idea. Neither, it may be added, had Davis.

  “You will be pleased to know, Mr. Lamb,” Sergeant Cutting began, “that everyone seems to agree with you. No one can suggest any reason for killing Paul Lennox. I wouldn’t say that he was well-liked—people seem to have disliked him for any cause from his sarcasm to his pipe—but men aren’t murdered from simple dislike. But there is no support for your Vignard idea. Not that I disbelieve you, but only that I think you unconsciously exaggerated.”

  “Didn’t you find anything at the auditorium?”

  Sergeant Cutting shook his head. “Davis here got there too late. The stage crew had been all too efficient, and the whole place was clean as a whistle. They’d swept the stage, emptied the waste baskets—even, damn them, washed the glass that must have held the poison. Your Mr. Drexel was the only person still there, and Davis followed my instructions. He held him for three solid hours while I was at the hospital.”

  The picture of the mercurial Drexel sitting beside the stolid Davis for three hours was too much for Martin.

  “I can’t quite blame you for laughing, Mr. Lamb. Myself, I think it served Drexel damned well right for being so officiously active. He might have suspected something was wrong—but he didn’t, and any hopes we might have had for facts from the auditorium have gone up in smoke. You will notice I say ‘facts,’ Mr. Lamb; you would say ‘clues.’”

  Martin rose somewhat excited. “But surely, Sergeant, this doesn’t disprove my seeing that paper. Some idiot of a stagehand probably chucked it away. It was no imagination. Mac saw it too—Don MacKinley, he’s on the crew—ask him. And God knows I of all people ought to recognize the Seven of Calvary—”

  “Just what do you mean by that, Mr. Lamb?”

  Martin told the partial truth. “I knew Dr. Schaedel and I liked him,” he said. “Naturally I was particularly interested in the circumstances of his murder. And I was one of the group to which Paul Lennox told the story of the Vignards before it got into the papers. I’ve been quite fascinated by that strange symbol.”

  “I’m afraid you just have the unhappy faculty of making incriminating remarks.” Sergeant Cutting smiled, while Davis snorted half audibly. He never had liked the way the Sarge talked to them college mugs. The Sergeant continued, disregarding the snort, “But now to the question: Mr. Lamb, why were you coming into this room just now?”

  “I heard sounds in here. First I was a little scared; it seemed as though Paul … but that’s nonsense. Then I thought it might be someone who … who had no business here …”

  “You mean …?”

  “The murderer. Yes. I never thought of the police. I simply thought I ought to investigate.”

  “And had you heard any noises in here earlier this morning?”

  “No. I was sound asleep. As you know, Sergeant, I got home late.”

  “I know. I’ve knocked on your door three times in the past hour. But the point I’m making is this, Mr. Lamb—Davis and I were not the first people to search this room.”

  Martin looked up in surprise.

  “The maid came in here at nine-thirty to make up the room. She’s a stolid soul, and hadn’t even heard that Paul Lennox was dead. She found the door unlocked, which surprised her, and the bed unslept in. The whole room was in perfect order, excepting the papers on the lowest shelf of the bookcase. Those were scattered all over the floor. She said Mr. Lennox never left them that way.”

  “That’s true,” Martin observed. “Paul went in for the strictest order. His room and mine were models for the study of contrast. To be sure, he was excited last night, but even at that—
” Martin paused abruptly.

  “Yes, Mr. Lamb?”

  “I wonder if I might see those papers. I know something about his work; I might be able—”

  “Certainly. As a matter of fact, that’s why I tried to wake you up. I thought you might give us a line on why anyone should want to rummage through those things.”

  Davis finished the last phonograph album and relinquished the floor to Martin, who squatted in a corner by the bookcase and began to examine the papers on the first shelf, where they had been replaced.

  They were a curious assortment of stuff—seminar papers, notes for seminar papers, papers read before societies, outlines of projected papers (among these the well-remembered outline on Possible Historical Originals for the Don Juan Legend), notebooks, and all the mess of stuff that an academic man keeps because he never knows when he might need it. Anything could have been in this assorted pile—anything, that is, of scholastic interest, but nothing remotely connected with a murder.

  Then Martin noticed that several of the notebooks bore the imprint of the students’ store at the University of Chicago. The first two contained vague random jottings on books not available elsewhere, including some curious bits of information concerning the Mandaeans and the Neminians over which Martin would gladly have lingered, had not the constant glances of the two policemen kept his search purposeful.

  The third University of Chicago notebook began with a title-page. The History of the City of Lausanne, it read; notes from conversation with Jean Stauffacher. Martin gave an involuntary cry of triumph, and read on. The next four pages contained various facts and dates, with an occasional anecdote apparently from the Stauffacher family legends. The fifth page ended with the words: Far more interesting, however, than this historical material is the information which I have obtained from Jean concern—

  The remaining pages of the notebook had been torn out.

  It was with something of exultation that Martin showed this notebook to Sergeant Cutting. “You see, Sergeant,” he explained, “this must be what they were after. Stauffacher is the man he told us about who put him on the track of the Vignards. This notebook must have been where he kept his material. I remember he spoke of refreshing his memory from his notes. And there are no notes on the Vignards anywhere in all this pile of stuff.”