The Seven of Calvary

by Anthony Boucher

  “These alibis needed consideration. Miss Wood’s was undoubtedly genuine, but her unneeded rush-call to Miss Roberts suggested that she knew that something was about to happen for which she would need an alibi. Mr. Lennox’s alibi, however, did not have such a genuine ring, especially when I learned of his owning an electric phonograph and an automatic repeater for records—an attachment for which the serious music lover has very little use. The time that he was out of Mr. Lamb’s sight would have been ample for him to reach Miss Wood’s home, strike his blow, and return. He could simply place upon the phonograph a theatrical sound-effect record of a typewriter, adjust the repeater, and go calmly off—having, of course, previously typed the paper which he was later to show Mr. Lamb as the result of his twenty minutes’ work.

  “Two things more made me suspicious of Mr. Lennox. One was—a minor detail—his unwarranted surprise when Mr. Bruce entered Mr. Lamb’s room on the night of the murder. The other was his elaborate narrative of the Seven of Calvary, which, as I have already explained, I tended to consider fictitious.

  “Now if I was inclined to believe Mr. Lennox the murderer, and he and Mr. Bruce had already been shown to be the only possible victims, it followed that Mr. Lennox had intended to murder Mr. Bruce. The one remaining question was: Why?”

  Dr. Ashwin paused. The explanation so far was familiar ground to Martin; his chief interest lay in watching the expressions of the others. Kurt grew more intense with each moment; Martin had never realized how fond the young Swiss was of his dead uncle until he saw his reactions to this narrative of murder. Dr. Griswold nodded with scholarly appreciation at each fresh point which Ashwin made. Alex looked on impassive; he might have been the merest curious auditor, rather than a central figure in the story.

  “Liquor,” Dr. Ashwin resumed didactically, “is, in my opinion, man’s greatest friend. A dog I have never thought comparable to a bottle of good Scotch. But dogs are at least faithful creatures, and liquor is notoriously treacherous, despite its many kindnesses. If it were not for the treachery of (if I remember aright) bad bourbon, I might never have been able to answer that question: Why? Even to those who knew them well, Paul Lennox and Cynthia Wood seemed only superficial, if mildly antagonistic, acquaintances. But Mr. Lamb, on the occasion of what he describes as a ‘Morris party,’ discovered and fortunately, despite his own condition, remembered the following facts: That Cynthia Wood was in love with Lennox and in all likelihood his mistress, and that Lennox was instituting an affair of sorts with the wife of a faculty member. This latter point seemed at times, in my consideration of the case, to offer a promising lead; but since it proved a blind alley, there is no need to provoke further scandal than necessary by naming names.

  “But even knowing that Mr. Lennox was Miss Wood’s lover, I was not much forrader. If he had attained her favors without interference from Mr. Bruce, the holder of a prior claim, and if, moreover, he was already casually unfaithful to Miss Wood, why in God’s name should he wish to kill Mr. Bruce? And then I committed my one act of rash hypothesizing. Miss Wood, I remembered, was an heiress to no inconsiderable fortune. Let us suppose, I thought, that Mr. Lennox’s true object is not Miss Wood’s doubtless delectable exotic body, but rather her father’s even more delectable money. Then he should marry her. Well, why doesn’t he? Query: A previous marriage? Second query: To Mr. Bruce, the most likely candidate? Objection: But even so, couldn’t he persuade Miss Wood (or Mrs. Bruce, if you prefer), who is so obviously—from Mr. Lamb’s narrative—passionately enamoured of him, to divorce this unnecessary husband? Why kill him?

  “And then I remembered the religion of Robert R. Wood. Not only is Mr. Wood a Roman Catholic; he is a convert to the faith, with all the rabid fanaticism which characterizes the convert. He is insistent that his daughter follow rigidly every precept of the Church. To eat ham on Friday delights her because it is a wild defiance of parental authority. She is forced to report to him each week on the subject of the sermon for the preceding Sunday. Obviously, if his daughter were to be guilty of divorce and remarriage, both she and her second husband would be disinherited forever from the Wood fortune.

  “You will object that all this is mere hypothesis. But I have shown already the practical certainty that Paul Lennox killed Dr. Schaedel in error for Alex Bruce. And if there is no other possible explanation for such a killing, I feel, on the time-honored Holmesian principle, that I was justified in treating my hypothesis almost as a fact.

  “The events of the night of April sixth now become clear. Miss Wood (it is simpler to continue to use her maiden name) invited Mr. Bruce to call on her that evening, and then sent a hurried request to Mary Roberts to come over, in order that she might have a witness to her innocence. If Mr. Bruce had called, she would have found some pretext for sending him home at exactly eleven-thirty; Miss Roberts’ presence would also help in avoiding a protracted farewell which might disrupt the time schedule. But Mr. Bruce, as I believe merely by chance, happened to forget the appointment and worked overtime at the laboratory, thereby saving his own life and, indirectly, causing the death of Dr. Schaedel.

  “Paul Lennox had meanwhile invited Mr. Lamb to his room and brought the conversation, at the proper time, around to some notes which he wished to discuss, but which needed to be typed. Then, after calling attention to the time, he dismissed Mr. Lamb, set his phonograph alibi going, and slipped out of the room, with a new and quite unidentifiable ice pick. He lay in wait in front of Miss Wood’s house, having arrived just after the innocent Dr. Schaedel had stopped to ask the time and his way to International House. Seeing a man of ordinary height and build, dressed in a gray suit, come from the door at the time stipulated in the schedule, Lennox naturally took the man for Mr. Bruce. You too, Mr. Ross, admitted to making the same mistake momentarily when you saw your uncle enter Miss Wood’s house.”

  Kurt nodded silently.

  “We shall pass over the next few moments quickly. They are not pleasant. Lennox stabbed his victim, dropped beside him a symbol (which was at that time absolutely meaningless and intended simply as a red herring), and suddenly felt himself seized by Mr. Ross. He slipped away, however, unrecognized, made his way quickly back to International House, and carried out the rest of his alibi procedure, without realizing as yet the terrible mistake that he had made.

  “In the meantime, Miss Wood and Miss Roberts had heard the one brief cry of Dr. Schaedel, but had been prevented from reaching the scene of the crime quickly enough by reason of Miss Wood’s fortunate stumble—a point which, together with the obvious necessity of a careful time schedule, helped make me positive of her complicity. The rest is for the newspapers.

  “You have often told me, Mr. Lamb, how much impressed you were with Mr. Lennox as an actor-how he seemed, despite lack of training, to have that natural genius which makes for great acting. And surely few greater performances have ever been given than that of Mr. Lennox on the night of the murder. He had just finished establishing his alibi; everything was secure … when into your room walks the man whom he had just murdered. He did give way to one sudden start, which all but upset your precious bourbon; but from then on, to judge by your narrative, he was superb. I doubt if he drank much; in his place I should have been afraid to, for fear of accidental self-revelation. But he entered fully into the spirit of the binge, seemed as magnificently intoxicated as any of you, and sang one of the greatest bawdy ballads in the language, while all the time the question tormented him: Whom have I killed?

  “When he did learn the identity of his victim, a brilliant idea occurred to him. The symbol had had no meaning when first he invented it; he had simply left it because it seemed to indicate the crime of a far more flamboyant person than he was thought to be. In actual fact, I believe Mr. Lennox to have been as intensely theatrical as the Fonseca drama in which he starred; but among his better acting performances was that of the quiet, sardonic, pipe-smoking young scholar. And this hidden theatrical flair, combined with a very practical desire to cr
eate a convincing false trail, led him to invent the Vignards.

  “And this, gentlemen, is where I underestimated his ingenuity. When he rolled off such resounding authorities as Werner Kurbrand’s Volks-mythologie der Schweiz and Ludwig Urmayer’s Nachgeschichte des gnostischen Glaubens—books of which I had never heard in any of my researches—I confidently expected them to prove fruits of his admirable imagination. I wrote to the University of Chicago library, where he claimed to have encountered them, and was amazed to receive, not a letter of disclaimer, but the books themselves. It was another touch worthy of the cautious Mr. Lennox. I read the volumes through carefully; and while they contain nothing definitely substantiating the Vignard legend, there are odd hints and unexplained references which probably would dovetail smoothly with the material in the destroyed notebook. Doubtless Mr. Lennox had come across these works in his researches at Chicago; and the memory of these ambiguous passages aided him when he came to concoct his mighty myth.

  “It was a good piece of invention, and I admire him for it. He knew enough of similar curious sects to invent one which was just sufficiently fantastic to be completely plausible. He told his yarn under a pledge of utter secrecy, but with an inner conviction that at least one member of the group would feel it his duty to give the story to the police and to the newspapers. Richard Worthing was the perfect person to do so; and his resultant predicaments have been among the few glimpses of humor in this whole case.

  “There, gentlemen, are my reasonings on the first murder; and allow me, before I proceed, to point out to you that all the facts upon which I base them were known to Mr. Bruce, as was also my theory of the erroneous murder.” Dr. Ashwin paused.

  “Why did not you do something?” Kurt cried. “My uncle was dead and you knew who had killed him; yet you do nothing. I cannot understand it.”

  “It seems to me,” Dr. Griswold interposed, “that there was nothing that he could do. The chain of reasoning is all highly ingenious; and I, for one, find it completely convincing. But there is very little evidence which could appear in a court of law.”

  “That I admit,” sighed Ashwin reluctantly. “All that I can definitely prove is that Paul Lennox’s Vignard story is, in essence, unsubstantiated, as my reply from Chicago demonstrates, and that he did have in his possession, on the night of April sixth, a sound-effect record such as his alibi required. Mr. Lamb, perhaps you had best relate what you discovered in San Francisco?”

  Martin told briefly his experience with the clay-smoking old clerk, including the identification of Alex as an earlier inquirer.

  “You do get around, Martin,” was Alex’s only comment.

  “Last Sunday,” Ashwin resumed, “I gave Mr. Lamb a little list of the points which he should consider in order to reach my conclusions. With the permission of the rest, I shall explain them henceforth as I go along, lest Mr. Lamb accuse me of cryptic charlatanry. To date we have covered the first three—that is:

  A: THE POINT OF THE FATHER’S RELIGION.

  B: THE POINT OF THE SUPERFLUOUS ALIBI (which is two points).

  and C: THE POINT OF THE FORTUNATE STUMBLE—all of which, I hope, are now clear.

  “Thus we have finished with the first murder, which is, I firmly believe, solved as fully as ever it will be, even though legal proof is incomplete. Before you raise objections, allow me to discuss the remaining appearances of the Seven of Calvary. But first I should like to suggest a brief rest—preferably wordless.…”

  “I think you might resume your discussion,” Dr. Grisrwold suggested after some five minutes of restful silence.

  “Very well.” Dr. Ashwin finished off his glass and turned again to face his guests, who roused themselves anew to sharp attentiveness. “I have now brought my résumé up to Thursday, April nineteenth—the night of the dress rehearsal of Don Juan Returns. At that point I was completely checkmated; I felt sure that I had solved the murder of Dr. Schaedel, and I felt almost equally sure that another attempt would soon be made on the life of Mr. Bruce; and yet I could do nothing but ask Mr. Lamb to watch carefully the two men involved.

  “And then came the poisoning of Paul Lennox. You were all present on that occasion; I need not refresh your memories. With this event, I failed lamentably, for once, to perceive the obvious. Instead my mind leaped to what might be called the pseudo-obvious—to the thought that here at last was the real murder, for which the other had been in the nature of a miscued rehearsal. This would mean that Paul Lennox had been the intended victim of the first killing, and that the murderer of Dr. Schaedel must be sought among those who had a motive for killing Lennox. It was this, I may add, that led me into futile speculations concerning the previously mentioned professor and his wife.

  “I confess even to having entertained briefly the theory that the story of the Vignards might be true, and that Mr. Lennox had indeed been killed because of his knowledge of the sect. But this theory was disposed of finally when the real killer of Lennox rifled his room—left unlocked in its owner’s excitement on the previous evening—and tore from a certain notebook those pages dealing with the Vignards, leaving on a previous page enough to show what had been stolen. As I explained at some length to Mr. Lamb, a true Vignard would have stolen the entire notebook. But since later events agree in exposing the Vignards as a myth, there is no use in elaborating this point here. I may merely add that Mr. Lennox had doubtless written up this matter of the Vignards in an old notebook (the preceding pages on Jean Stauffacher and the history of Lausanne are probably genuine) in case he should be called upon to substantiate his story.

  “But there were many objections to considering Mr. Lennox as the originally intended victim. For one thing, there was no indication that he had proposed going to Miss Wood’s on the night of April sixth. But most important, I could find no flaw in the case which I had built up against him as the likely murderer—a case now fully substantiated by the answer from Chicago and by the evidence of Mr. Lamb’s clay-smoking old gentleman.

  “I resolved for the moment simply to try to find Mr. Lennox’s killer without reference to the first murder, and considered the classic trinity of Motive, Means, and Opportunity. Motive, because of the complex emotional situation I have already outlined, gave me a plethora of suspects, all of whom also had opportunity. Means pointed chiefly, although not necessarily exclusively, to the chemical student Alex Bruce. And a comparison of memory between Mr. Lamb and Dr. Griswold showed us further that it was Mr. Bruce who had broken the glass of stage-wine, and therefore almost certainly Mr. Bruce who had earlier prepared the other glass.

  “The next three points which I suggested to Mr. Lamb are those which led me out of this impasse to the solution which must already be clear to the rest of you. The first was Mr. Lamb’s description of a brief bit of dialogue overheard by him at the ‘Morris party.’ Mr. Bruce, impressed by my theory of the erroneous murder, was expounding it to Mr. Lennox, who seemed disproportionately anxious to dissuade Mr. Bruce from such a belief. This is

  D: THE POINT OF THE DISPUTED THEORY.

  “The second was the great diversity in means between the two murders, a diversity so great as to imply either different agents or some striking necessity for change. This point

  E: THE POINT OF THE VARYING WEAPONS

  led me directly into the next as I asked myself, ‘Why did Paul Lennox have to die at that moment of that play?’ I found the answer on reading Mr. Lamb’s translation. You must all remember the speech during which the poison was entering Mr. Lennox’s system. I shall forbear reading it aloud to you; I fear that my declamatory style is ill suited to sixteenth century rodomontade. But its essence is this: Don Juan knows that he is about to die at the hands of the avenging Don Félix. He says, in effect, ‘I know that this is, from your point of view, a just killing; I have seduced, I have murdered, I have gloried in my crimes. But rather than perform abject penance and beg you for my life, I prefer to die in my full glory as lecher and murderer.’ And these, gentlemen, were the last coh
erent words of Paul Lennox.”

  As Dr. Ashwin paused, the silence of the room grew loud. Martin himself had not realized the dread appropriateness of that speech, nor why that scene had been chosen for a killing. Now it was too clear, and he shuddered. Alex sat unmoved.

  “Thus,” Ashwin resumed, it was

  F: THE POINT OF THE SEVILLIAN TIRADE

  which brought me closest to the truth. And it was the murderous attack upon Mr. Bruce which confirmed me in my new belief, and led me to pin my faith on

  G: THE POINT OF THE EYE AND THE TOOTH.

  I had fallen into the grievous error, fostered no doubt by my fondness for mystery novels, of believing that a series of murders involving a strange symbol must all be traced to one murderer. Now I saw that each attack was simply a logical consequence of the previous one.

  “I have explained how I had reasoned that Paul Lennox must be the murderer of Dr. Schaedel. I now believe that Mr. Bruce, knowing my theory that the first murder was a mistake and having his interest stirred by Mr. Lennox’s obvious unwillingness to have him believe in that theory, proceeded to form the same conclusions as I. He had the same facts to work with, and I do not know what corroborative details. His opinion was probably confirmed beyond doubt when he learned that Paul Lennox had indeed rented the typewriter record needed for his alibi. He felt, as did I, that the scheduled killing, with himself as victim, would in time still take place; and he resolved to forestall it by killing Lennox first.

  “The symbol of the Seven of Calvary he left under the poisoned glass probably to indicate that Lennox was the source of the symbol; and he chose that moment of your play, Mr. Lamb, in order to provide Paul Lennox with a most appropriate dying utterance—a grim piece of humor. Afterwards, not only to clear himself but also, I hope, to clear possible innocent suspects, he laid two false trails leading to the Vignards—one, the notebook; the other, the sign on Richard Worthing’s door. But, clever though the crime was, one person other than I saw through it. That person, needless to say, was Paul Lennox’s accomplice in the first murder, Cynthia Wood Bruce, who knew that one person and only one had a motive for killing her lover and leaving the Seven beside him—his intended victim. So she, in turn, sought an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth by shooting Mr. Bruce and hurling at him that damnable symbol, thereby rounding out