The Case of the Seven Sneezes

by Anthony Boucher

  “You …” she started to say.

  “Uh uh,” said Fergus. “Not both of us.”

  “I persuaded Tom,” Dr. Arnold explained, “that no man should be left alone with this … young lady. Our sex must band together for self-protection.” He leaned over and picked up the lacy black scrap. “Yours, my dear, I believe? Such a touching notion for mourning. To cite a noted anecdote, ‘Quelle délicatesse!’”

  Fergus suddenly realized his palms were wet.

  Alys stood irresolute, then headed wordlessly for the door.

  Dr. Arnold stopped her. “One moment.” He felt under the lapel of his dressing gown, found a pin, and with a not quite steady hand fastened the torn sweater back into place. “We mustn’t give any wrong impressions, must we?”

  Alys wavered on the balls of her feet. Then she delivered one stinging slap to the doctor’s cheek and hurried from the room.

  Fergus retrieved the bottle and used it. “After a drink,” he admitted, “that sweet little scene looks funny. It didn’t at the time.”

  Dr. Arnold declined the proffered bottle. “I thought it might happen,” he said. “If I had Alys for a patient, I should never dare treat her save in the presence of a nurse.”

  “Afraid of her cute little tricks?”

  “Of her tricks and of …” He left the sentence unfinished.

  “And Quincy was going to marry her.”

  “Lucas was no longer young. He found Alys—how shall I put it?—warming. I told you that Lucas had only two interests in life.” Dr. Arnold seated himself. “And now, Mr. O’Breen, since I am here in your sanctum, I suppose we might as well have my interview next?“

  iii

  “You can guess,” Fergus gestured at his notes, “what these interviews are about.”

  “I can imagine. You are doubtless taking the entire series of violent acts, the attacks upon Martha, Corcoran, Ramirez, and Lucas, and checking each individual right down the line. If anyone shows possibilities in every instance, you have something to concentrate on.”

  “Exactly. And so, Dr. Arnold?”

  “May I beg a cigarette of you? Thank you. And so, Mr. O’Breen, you may enter a complete set of possibilities under Arnold, Hugh, M. D.”

  “I hope not,” said Fergus.

  “And why, pray?”

  “Because you’d be such a damned sight harder to cope with than any of the others. You’re so much more clearsighted that you could be infinitely more slippery.”

  Arnold bowed. “Again thank you.”

  Fergus waited a moment before saying, coolly, “It’s not necessarily a compliment.”

  “Allow me to take it as such. And allow me further to show you that my claim is correct. As to Martha, of course each of us is a possibility there. It is too long ago to recall accurate details. All we know now is that we were all in that hotel and all on the same corridor. Anyone might have taken the opportunity.”

  “Check,” said Fergus.

  “At the time of Corcoran’s mischance, I was dressing. I imagine you have heard that before?”

  “I have. With monotonous regularity.”

  “I could easily have caused that mischance and returned to my room before James came there to fetch me. As to Ramirez— When that little group in the livingroom broke up, I went outside to find James. I was puzzled by his rudeness to Alys and wondered if he were well. He might easily have suffered some shock from his earlier discovery of Corcoran. I did not find him, and returned to the house only just before you carried in the unconscious Ramirez.”

  “And tonight?”

  “I was, as you found me, asleep in my chair beside my patient; but I fear that he is in no position to give evidence to that effect.”

  “Uh huh,” Fergus nodded, dutifully entering these statements on his chart. “Beautiful guilty-looking record. But there’s one other—what was your phrase?—violent act.”

  A frown of apprehension crossed Arnold’s lean face. “Another?”

  “Valentino.”

  “Oh. Of course. Stella’s cat.“

  “Now you were at that dinner party. Who could have had the opportunity to kill the beast?”

  “A pleasant beast,” Dr. Arnold mused regretfully. “He resembled a negative photograph of Hitler. No, let us keep the connotations as pleasant as we may, and say Chaplin. He was dead black, save for a minute white Chaplin mustache. A grotesquely pleasing effect. … But as for who could have killed him, I have been puzzling over that problem myself.”

  “With what results?”

  “None, I fear. We saw Valentino, heartily alive, after dinner. He was eating his dogfood—the perverse beast loathed all forms of catfood—while Janet was clearing the table, and we all trooped out to the kitchen to greet him. And after that: We spent the entire evening in the livingroom. We played a frantic round of flying patience, and the rest of the time we talked. We older ones recalled our temps perdu, while Alys was bored and Janet fascinated. Lucas and Alys left first, and together. I was staying overnight with James in his bachelor apartment; we also went home together. And shortly after our departure Janet made her discovery. No one had been outdoors alone at any time.”

  “And all of you were together in the livingroom all that time? Didn’t anybody even—?”

  “The hall to the bathroom opens off the livingroom itself and does not connect with the kitchen. You could not have reached the back porch in that way.”

  “Was there much drinking?”

  “Merely enough for sociability. Certainly not sufficient to befuddle our recollections—save, of course, for Alys.”

  “She was cockeyed again?”

  “She … well, she had had one over the eight.”

  “Not that I’ve ever known quite what that meant,” Fergus muttered as he added to his notes. “One under the eight of zombies, say, would be a Bunyanesque achievement, while one over the eight of beer might be just a warming-up.” He stared at his notes a moment. “In other words … ?”

  “In other words, Miss Paris’ first conjecture must be correct. Valentino must have been killed by some weird cultist. No one of us could have done it.”

  “I don’t like coincidence,” said Fergus.

  The doctor started to rise. “I take it that concludes my quota of questions?”

  Fergus waved him back into the chair. “No. One more question, Dr. Arnold, if you don’t mind.”

  “Certainly.”

  “Tell me. Are you fish or reptile?”

  Arnold smiled. “I had heretofore admired you, Mr. O’Breen, for your directness. I hope you are not going to adopt the cryptic manner of the fictional detective.”

  “That’s direct enough. It means just this: Mammals are warmblooded. You don’t seem to fit into that order.”

  “I shock you? One in your profession should not be so sensitive.”

  “I’m not shocked. Just curious.”

  “Very well, Mr. O’Breen. I shall attempt, doubtless crudely enough, to analyze what you consider my callousness. I don’t know that I have ever analyzed it even to myself.” He took a cigarette from the pack on the table, struck a match, let it burn out, and set the cigarette down unlit. “It goes back, I suppose, as does so much else, to Jay Stanhope.

  “Jay was a good man. I do not know what that term conveys to you, Mr. O’Breen; but it is a phrase I have never applied to any other man. There was nothing evil, nothing self-seeking about Jay. And I, who had always taken for granted my vices, my greeds, my cruelties, and those of my friends, met Jay and recognized their true horror.

  “But I could not adjust myself to that horror as could Jay. He knew that humanity was vile and contemptible, but he loved it for the beauty which redeemed even that vileness. He had the sharp vision of a Swift and the compassion of a Christ. I could attain only the former. So I took refuge in what, with youthful pride, I called the Scientific Attitude. Grant the stupid evil of mankind, but go your way observing and untouched. Do what you can and leave the rest to God, or t
o his more probable absence.

  “These are my friends and you feel that I should mourn for them. But can I mourn the extinction of the domineering, power-lusting Lucas? Can I feel compunction for any danger that hangs over that strutting popinjay that is our host, or that bland mass of ineffectualness that is his brother-in-law? I am inhuman, Mr. O’Breen, because I am human, because I know in myself the baseness of our nature. I cannot believe that the universe trembles when one blemish the more is removed from it.”

  “‘I am myself,’” Fergus quoted, “‘indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse myself of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me.’”

  Dr. Arnold nodded bitterly. “What indeed should such fellows as I do crawling between heaven and earth? What but to check the worst in oneself, to observe others, and rigorously to discipline oneself to an absence of emotion?”

  “Nice life,” said Fergus, “if you can lead it. But tell me, doctor, were you being observant in 1915?”

  “Imperfectly so.”

  “I gather that everybody was damned near as fond of Martha Stanhope as of Jay. There doesn’t seem to have been any sane motive for her death. And yet something not quite a motive for sane murder might just the guiding prod for an insane one. Can you think of anything? Anything, say, that changed in the last few days before the wedding?”

  Dr. Arnold tried to think back. “There was one odd little episode. I remember worrying about it later, and then conveniently masking my worry with an unthinking acceptance of the prowler theory. It was something about a letter …”

  “Yes?”

  “I am remembering, I fear, at one remove. That is, I can remember remembering this episode, but not the episode itself. It was a letter from Jay. Let me see. … This would be several days before the wedding.”

  “And before the cats?”

  “I am not certain. I think so. I can recall us all sitting on the front porch at the Stanhopes’. Some of us were drinking beer and we were discussing plans for the wedding. Then the postman came.” He seemed to be watching his memory like a film projected onto a screen. “The only mail was a letter for Martha. We realized from the stamps and the censor’s mark that it must be from Jay. But what happened then? Why should that scene seem so important in my memory?”

  “What was in the letter?” Fergus prompted.

  “That’s it. Thank you, Mr. O’Breen. I don’t know what was in the letter. That is it.”

  “You remember it because you don’t know it?”

  “Exactly. Martha always read Jay’s letters at one eager gulp, and then read them aloud slowly for all of us to savor. This letter she read through, folded up again, and tucked into her shirtwaist. It was the last letter Jay wrote before his death. And I never knew its contents. And that is the only remarkable event that I can recall in that period.”

  Fergus frowned. “Martha was going to get married too, wasn’t she? To Quincy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? Or has Quincy changed a lot since then? From all I’ve heard of the Stanhopes, he doesn’t seem just Martha’s type.”

  “He didn’t change. He became intensified, perhaps. He grew to be more markedly what he had always been. But I should not say that he changed. He was young then, of course, and two who are young have always at least that common ground for love, even though the analytical eye sees no other.”

  “Is that enough?”

  “They may think so.”

  “But it—it seems wrong that Martha was marrying him.”

  “After all, Mr. O’Breen,” Dr. Arnold reminded, “remember this: she did not marry him.”

  iv

  Fergus smiled at the pipe in James Herndon’s hand. “A corncob, sir? I thought you went in for the fancy lines.”

  “Scorn not the corncob, Mr. O’Breen.” Herndon attempted an answering smile, but it was feeble. His face, his whole body looked terribly old. “It is a noble smoke. And my meerschaum is broken. It must have fallen when I was struck. The shank cracked as it hit the floor.”

  “I suppose,” Fergus began, “you haven’t any idea … Nuts! That’s a damned negative approach. Let’s be optimists. Tell me who struck you, sir.”

  Herndon shook his head. “Your first approach was negative, but justifiably so. I have no idea.”

  “But what happened?”

  “I heard a knock on my door. At least I think I did. I opened the door and looked out into the hall. And then something hit me.”

  “From behind?”

  “Yes. I saw nothing.”

  “And what did you see in the hall?”

  “Nothing there either. Simply the empty hall.”

  Fergus made a note in silence. “How about this afternoon? Where were you before you found Corcoran?”

  “Dressing.”

  Fergus had automatically written the word down before Herndon spoke. “Did you see anything around there—anything at all to give you a hint as to who’d been there before you?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “And later on? Where were you after you walked out on Alys? And by the way, why that?”

  “She was offensive,” said James Herndon simply.

  “I know. I can understand your feelings. And after all, all she did to you was try to kiss you. … But you, sir, are not an Irish ruffian like me; does a gentleman openly insult a lady merely because she offends him?”

  “Mr. O’Breen, what is for you the most beautiful passage in what is loosely termed ‘classical’ music?”

  “I’m not sure. Probably the second movement of the Beethoven seventh. You know …” And Fergus tapped on the table dum da-da-dum dum.

  “And what would you think of a cheap and banal ‘popular’ arrangement of that movement?”

  “I’d wring the neck of the guy that tried it.”

  “A gentleman, I think, might do likewise. Nothing is so intolerable as the perversion of noble beauty.”

  Fergus was puzzled for a moment. Then he recalled that Alys was a distant relation of the Stanhopes, and suddenly much was clear. He nodded. “And after you left, sir? Where were you when the boat was stolen?”

  “Back in my room, smoking and reading Eliot. I came down when I heard the commotion.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “And apropos of Eliot. … But let’s finish the chart first. Now last Wednesday, you had dinner with Stella Paris?”

  “Yes. It was a pleasure to see Janet again after all these years. And of course Stella provided an admirable dinner.”

  “I don’t doubt that. But tell me: You knew Miss Paris’ cat was killed that night?”

  “Yes.” Herndon sounded even more than usually perplexed. “Yes, I knew that.”

  “As you remember the evening, who could have had a chance to do that killing?”

  “No one,” said James Herndon, slowly and hesitantly, as though praying that someone would contradict him.

  The details of his story fitted exactly with Dr. Arnold’s narrative. Fergus checked them over, shook his red head doubtfully, and said, “Then you think it must have been a cultist too?”

  “Mr. O’Breen, I am confounded if I know what I think.” The old man’s voice was tortured. “I can remember the cats the other time. Twenty-five years ago. They led to Martha’s death then. Now they lead at last to Lucas’. It cannot be coincidence. And yet it is impossible.”

  “Nothing’s impossible,” Fergus stated, “if I may coin a novel truth. But why did you say ‘at last’?”

  “Did I?”

  “You said, ‘Now they lead at last to Lucas’ death.’”

  “I don’t know. One uses turns of speech …”

  “Sure. You didn’t much like Lucas Quincy, did you, Mr. Herndon?”

  Herndon’s lips trembled for a moment, but when his speech came it was calm enough. “No, Mr. O’Breen. I confess that I did not.”

  “Why?“

  “Does one ever know why?”

  “One sometimes has
a pretty shrewd idea.”

  “Not I. Not in this case. Is it not Algernon Blackwood who expounds the theory that dislike may be purely chemical, apparently unmotivated, but all the more real for that very reason? Or as Martial put it long before, Non amo te, Sabidi … ?”

  “I do not love thee, Dr. Fell?” Fergus suggested in the vernacular.

  “Exactly. I have never loved Lucas, I admit. But it is simply that we are antipathetic. There is no precise and definable cause.”

  “Not even,” Fergus guessed, “your sister?”

  “My sister? I don’t understand you.” But Herndon’s body had momentarily stiffened, and his teeth had tightened their grip on the corncob.

  “But shouldn’t such chemical reactions be mutual?” Fergus went on. “For Quincy you were no Dr. Fell. No Sabidius, if you prefer that.”

  “No?”

  “In fact the only soft and human trait I observed in Lucas Quincy was a kind of tender regard for you. Solicitous, that’s the word. If you were alone and worried, there was Quincy, looking after you, consoling you …”

  “God damn him,” said James Herndon.

  Fergus was silent. This had been no ordinary oath. It was not the nasty snapping “God damn” of Horace Brainard nor the casual friendly “God damn” of Fergus himself. It was a perfectly literal request that God in His infinite power might condemn to Hell forever the soul of Lucas Quincy. It was terrifying in its simple sincerity.

  “Let’s go back,” said Fergus. “Let’s go way back to 1915. Tell me: Were you satisfied with this prowler theory?”

  “No. To speak frankly, Mr. O’Breen, I was not. But as time went by … In twenty-five years, even the murder of a most dear friend can become something dim and distant. You may not believe that now, but it is true. Martha herself is still close to me. I can remember her smile and her absurdly small boots and the wind in her motoring veil. But her death and the details of her death are almost as faded in my mind as the plot of one of the Gene Stratton Porter novels which everyone was reading them.”

  “It was you who found her?”

  “Yes. But I cannot remember even that, though for quite a different reason. That first moment of shock erased itself from my mind at once. Hugh could doubtless explain the defense mechanism involved. Even later that same night, I could not recall having found her. I knew only that I was there with her and she was dead and the others had come—I must have cried out—and there was blood on my dressing gown. As there was on Catherine’s tonight,” he added.