“Yes,” Arnold agreed. “There were tension and suspicion enough evident at dinner, when many of us no more than half realized our situation. A solid night of that silent glaring could bring about more murders than our cat-killer has ever dreamed of. You’re quite right, O’Breen; we must sleep. But surely with guards?”
“Of course. And I think you’ll agree with me that those guards will have to be Tom and me, with possibly Janet to help us. We three are the only ones who can’t come under any conceivable suspicion—aside from Alys, and you can guess how much use she’d be.”
“The Brainards,” Stella Paris suggested. “They weren’t at the hotel when … when Martha …”
“Do you see me getting any cooperation out of the Brainards? A beautiful and touching dream, Miss Paris, but highly impractical. No, it’s Tom and me, with one sweet thought to warm us in our vigil.”
“That being?”
“That our throat-cutter is curiously inefficient. That dull knife on Corcoran … He seems to be one killer you’ve got a fair chance of surviving.”
“That point worries me,” Arnold confessed. “In all the history of psychopathic killers—and surely this must be one—I have never heard of one so neglectful of the tools of his trade.”
Miss Paris gave a shuddering little cry. “But that’s why … ! Oh … !”
“What?” Fergus demanded.
“You remember I carved the roast ahead of time? Well, I noticed when I was in the kitchen serving the dessert, the fork of that carving set was right where I’d left it, but the knife … I didn’t look for it; I just thought it might have been mislaid in the confusion. But now …”
“Who had the chance to take it?”
“Anybody might have. I carved the roast before I went to call people to dinner. I was in and out of the kitchen; anybody could have slipped in for a second.”
“And anybody,” Dr. Arnold added, “could have known that we were having a roast and that a carving knife would be at hand in the kitchen.”
Fergus said nothing. He was seeing in his mind those thin sharply cut slices of beef. It would not be a dull knife the next time.
“… the damned audacity,” Horace Brainard was indignantly expounding to his guests, “to demand a thousand dollars of me, or we’d all have our throats cut!”
“High stakes,” Lucas Quincy grunted, with a certain admiration.
“Come now, Horace,” James Herndon interposed mildly. “I’m sure you misunderstood the young man. He can’t have had the brass to threaten our lives like that.”
“Can’t he? You ask Hugh. Ask Stella. They heard him. ‘A thousand dollars,’ he said. ‘Your guests’ lives ought to be worth that to you’!”
“But Father,” Janet suggested, “mightn’t he have meant that he wanted to protect us?”
“That’s right,” Mrs. Brainard sniffled. “Stand up for him because he’s Tom’s friend. That’s the way young people are. Their own generation means more to them than their own people who’ve borne them and bred them and loved them …”
“Loved them so much,” said James Brainard, “that they drove them off to New York.” His words were as light as his pipe’s smoke, and drifted away as unheeded.
Mrs. Brainard turned, with a sort of reverential coquetry, to the red-faced financier. “What do you think, Lucas? Don’t you think that Horace was right?”
“I think,” said Lucas Quincy, “that that young Irishman has guts.”
“Hasn’t he just … !” Alys murmured.
Fergus felt the hostility when he entered the room. It came at him in heavy warm waves and stifled him. Or perhaps it was the open fire and the after-effects of the brandy.
He walked to the fireplace and stood facing all those eyes. Stella Paris slipped in quietly after him and sat down beside Janet. “I wish,” Fergus said, “that I could speak to you under different circumstances. If Mr. Brainard had so desired, I could have given orders. As it is, I can only make suggestions.” His voice belied his words. There was in it a new and commanding strength. The vanished carving knife had made the whole terror immediate. There was no time now to curry favor or to angle for checks. The Evil Angel had gone home in disgust at such impracticality. There was nothing to do now but take over and do your damnedest.
“Where the devil is Hugh?” snapped Brainard.
“Have you started with him?” Mrs. Brainard demanded shrilly.
“Don’t be an ass, Cathy,” said Lucas Quincy.
“Dr. Arnold,” Fergus explained as calmly as he could, “has gone to check up on his patients. I’ve come here to see, if possible, that he’s not going to have any more of them. I’m not strong on this oogy-boogy approach, but I’ve got to jolt you into doing what has to be done. So without asking the permission that I know Mr. Brainard will refuse to grant, I’m. going to ask a few questions. First, are there any flashlights in this house?”
“I saw one in the kitchen,” said Stella Paris, and Janet added, “I have one.”
“And Dr. Arnold thinks he remembers one in Corcoran’s room. That’s some small help. And are there any firearms among you?”
There was silence.
“You know,” Fergus explained patiently. “Little things that go boom! and kill people. The makeshift gap until we get disintegrator rays. Come on. Are we an unarmed group?”
“Don’t you have a gun?” Alys sounded hurt and disillusioned.
“Light of my life, that is a sore subject, and we’ll pass over it in gentle silence. Nobody?”
“I …” James Herndon’s voice was so loud in the silence that he broke off and began again more softly. “I do have a gun, I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
“Well, you see, Mr. O’Breen, it’s a set. A morocco case containing a meerschaum pipe and a bone-handled revolver, designed to match. The meerschaum is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship, semicurved, a modified-bulldog bowl carved into—”
“And the revolver?”
“You see, I never think of that as a weapon. It’s just something that lives with the meerschaum. But I suppose it is a firearm.”
“Don’t be too scared,” said Fergus. “Maybe it’s really a water pistol. Is it loaded?”
“I … I think so.”
Fergus groaned. “Whatever the hell it is, I want it. You can have it back tomorrow, God willing; I won’t spoil your pretty set. But something in my hand would make me feel a damned sight more comfortable tonight.”
“You surely aren’t going to do that, James?” his brother-in-law blustered. “Entrust the one weapon on the island to this threatening young imbecile?”
“You think it’s wise, James?” Lucas Quincy asked heavily.
James Herndon looked at Fergus a long time. “Somehow, Lucas, I think it is.” His tone was that of a man who has just heard the foreman say Guilty, and who rejoices that now that weight is off his mind.
“All right,” said Fergus. “Now if all the revered members of the older generation will stay put happily in this room for the next half hour, we younger ones are going gathering nuts in May, or shells on the seashore Willie, as you prefer. In simpler words, we’re out for driftwood, ligan, flotsam, jetsam, Cottontail, and Peter to make the goddamnedest bonfire Blackman’s Island has ever seen.”
James Herndon’s voice was low. Only the fact that one of Fergus’ odder friends had recently been forcing Eliot down his throat enabled him to catch the quotation:
“To Carthage then I came
Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest
burning”
Chapter 6
It was in the midst of the driftwood hunt that Fergus found the knife.
His self-allotted area was the center of the beach, nearest the house if any fresh hell broke loose there. Off to his right and left he could see the wandering beams of the flashlights which indicated the quests of Tom and Janet. Near him the pyre grew. It was not going to be q
uite so mountainous as he had hoped, but it should serve.
And there on the sand, halfway between the house and those dark stains which had so entranced Alys Trent, his flashlight glinted on metal. He bent over and picked up the knife. Not the stolen carving knife; that still hung in Damoclean suspension over their heads, or to be more anatomically precise, their necks. This must be the Corcoran knife.
It was an unusual and unwieldy sort of implement, somewhat along the Boy Scout model. The blade that was open bore blood and sand. There were several other blades, for unimaginable purposes. Despite his ever active curiosity, he refrained from opening them. It was a long chance, but prints might be taken from the metal trim of the horn handle. Next to impossible, but still worth the try.
He touched the sandclotted blade firmly with his thumb. Definitely dull. Not an efficient murderer this; and the point Arnold had made was well taken. But next time … He wrapped the knife in a handkerchief, slipped it into the breast pocket of his shirt, and turned hastily back to the house.
When he came into the livingroom, all was silent save for a sort of rasping gurgle. At first he could not place it. It sounded like a peculiarly damp death rattle.
Then Horace Brainard shouted, “Will you for God’s sake clean that damned pipe, Jim!”
“I’m so sorry.” Herndon laid the offending pipe gently upon the table beside him. “But I can’t clean it. I’ve lost my knife that has all those handy gadgets on it. And this has reached a state where a simple pipe cleaner is helpless against it.”
“Then use another pipe. Brought along your whole damned collection, didn’t you?”
“Very well, Horace.”
“Just a minute, Mr. Herndon,” said Fergus. “When did you lose this gadget-knife?”
“When? Oh … This morning, I think. Since I came to the island, I’m certain. If you should happen to see it while you’re hunting around …”
“Sure. I’ll let you know. Miss Paris, could you come into the kitchen with me for a minute?”
“Well?” Stella Paris demanded when they had reached the kitchen. “I imagine Horace thinks you’ve dragged me out here for rrrevenge because he wouldn’t come across. But what is it really?”
“A little spot of plain and fancy stable-door-locking. If our throat-slitting friend is given to switching knives, we might as well prevent another switch. You worked in this kitchen. You know the lay-out. I want you to find me every remaining knife with a sharp cutting edge. Make certain sure that carving knife is missing, and see if anything else is.”
Without a word Miss Paris was setting resolutely about this gruesome task when Lucas Quincy appeared in the doorway. He nodded at Fergus and said, “Hall.”
This time, when he took out a cigar for himself, he offered one to the detective. It was worth taking. The perfect suavity of the first puff was a noteworthy sensation even in the midst of such a night.
“No luck with Horace?” Quincy asked tersely.
“None. And double zero is zero. The house wins on either of them.”
“You were right, hang you,“ Quincy grunted reluctantly. “Since I’ve heard about Corcoran and the carving knife, I see what you meant by proof. This is the job again.”
“On my terms?”
“Which are?”
“As before. D. A.’s office if need be.”
Quincy hardly hesitated. “It’s a deal.”
“We’ve got to talk.” With Quincy, Fergus found himself dropping into the man’s own laconic speech.
“Not now. You go ahead with your bonfire and guard arrangements. Come see me late tonight—others asleep.”
“O. K.”
“And O’Breen.”
“Sir?”
“Here’s an idea for you: I think you’ll find that the solution to this problem lies in Eliot.”
Fergus all but gasped. “You read Eliot?”
“Never read a word of him,” said Lucas Quincy, and walked back to the livingroom.
Fergus frowned as he returned to the kitchen. He saw one possible reason for Quincy’s off-again-on-again-Finnegan attitude, a reason which would make the entire problem both simpler and far more complex. But the Eliot allusion was beyond him …
He was so intensely preoccupied by now with the immediate urgency of the case itself that he gave hardly more than a passing thought to this definite prospect of a fee at last. He had not even thought to mention a contract this time, though God knew he trusted Lucas Quincy no more than he did Brainard.
He found Stella Paris regarding a pile of a dozen or so knives of varying sizes, shapes and uses. “I think,” she said, “that these are the only ones that would … that would do.”
“And no others missing?”
“Just that carving knife. It was Sheffield steel with a smooth bone handle. That’s all that’s gone.”
“But ’tis enough,” Fergus mused. “’Twill serve.”
In the house you forgot you were on an island. You seemed to be—well, just anywhere. In an ordinary civilized abode, where you simply went to the phone and called the police if anything extraordinary happened.
But out here on the beach it was different. You saw the twinkle of stars above you and the twinkle of Santa Eulalia lights before you, and they seemed equally far away. You were another Selkirk, another Crusoe; but the footprint you had stumbled on be tokened no friendly servant, but a black shape with no face, a shape with a Sheffield carving knife and a curious taste for throats.
The first three matches went out. The fourth glowed at last in Fergus’ cupped hands. “I’d make a hell of a Boy Scout,” he observed.
“But just think, O’Breen,” said Janet, “how cute you’d, look in short pants.”
“If I did, the rest of the troop would undoubtedly be wearing dinner jackets. I never realized before what a psychogoddamnedlogical disadvantage clothes can put you at.”
The papers caught fire quickly and spread crackling brightness to the pile of wood.
“This,” said Tom, “is going to be the swellest blaze since Mrs. O’Leary’s cow brandished her temperament.”
“Is that funny, Tom?” Janet asked.
“Did I say it was?”
“I think Alys might like it.”
“Tut tut!” Fergus tut-tutted. “Undignified bickering …” He stood back, surveyed the glowing pyre, and seemed medium content. “God knows what will come of this, but it’s worth the try. And now comes the time to put the rest of the plan into action. Tom, you and Janet go back to the house and herd those people to their rooms. Then Tom, you take the business half of Herndon’s precious matching set and establish yourself on guard. I’ll stick around here for a while and see that this gets started good. Relieve you later.”
“And my duties?” Janet asked.
“Nothing probably.”
“But I want some duties. Doing nothing isn’t my line.”
“We’ll hold you in reserve. Run along now.”
“I’m not running,” she announced decisively. “If I have no duties at the house, I’m staying here. Tom can get along without me. And I need this fire. I need to look at something clean and bright until it burns out all the horror and fear and nonsense inside me.”
Burning burning burning burning, Fergus thought, to Carthage then I came and the solution lies in Eliot and nuts! He shrugged. “O. K. You go on ahead, Tom. I’ll send up Janet as soon as she’s purged.”
But Quincy hadn’t said T. S. Eliot. Had he just jumped to that notion because Herndon’s quotation was still in his mind? But what else did Eliot mean? A five-foot shelf and The Mill on the Floss which what is a floss anyway? and a president’s son with an unexpected Texan accent and Some Day I’ll Find You and the solution lies in Eliot and my heart belongs to daddy with moonlight behind you … “Better move back a little,” he said aloud. “The fire’s getting hot.”
“We should at least have marshmallows,” Janet smiled. “Huge ones like footstools to match the size of this fire.”
The firelight glistened on Fergus’ collection of knives. Janet looked at them and then away quickly.
“Tell me, O’Breen,” she said, with an abrupt return to the efficient manner of Our Miss Brainard. “You are a detective, aren’t you?”
“Tom told you?”
“It wouldn’t have been too hard to guess anyway since you started taking over. I don’t know who’s paying your bill, and I’m not asking; but I suppose in a way we’re all of us your clients here, aren’t we?”
“All,” said Fergus, “but one.”
“Yes … Of course …” She faltered for a moment, but rapidly regained her brusque manner. “Then tell me, as detective to client, do you really think that anything more will happen tonight?”
“With an O’Breen in charge? Hell no, my sweeting. You’re snug as the dug of a bug in a rug.”
“And you wish you believed that, don’t you?”
Fergus damned her accuracy silently but thoroughly. Then he said, “You don’t happen to know Morse, I suppose?”
“No, I don’t. Sorry.”
“And with all your efficiency. Shocking.”
“Why should I? Oh, of course. Signals.”
“Uh huh. Comes daylight. The sun’ll be right, and we could rig up one of the dressing-table mirrors. But comes daylight I won’t be worrying so much anyway. Wonderful thing, night. The human capacity for terror wouldn’t be half so well developed without darkness. It’s primeval and it’s prime nonsense, but it works.”
“I know,” Janet said after a pause. “Things do work. Whether we want them to or not. Whether we’re sensible or not.”
“Atavism is the first law of nature,” said Fergus. “Which on reflection doesn’t seem to mean anything, but wouldn’t sound bad at a highbrow party. I’ll save it.”
“Like being filial. Are you filial, O’Breen?”
The Case of the Seven Sneezes Page 10
