Malice in Wonderland

by Nicholas Blake

  Paul wandered outside again, past the tennis-courts, over to the fun-fair. This was another project by the Wonderland directors to go one better than all existing holiday camps. It was particularly popular with the children, for it contained slides, bumper-cars, a merry-go-round, a coco-nut shy, swings and the like. At the moment, however, it was comparatively deserted, since the gong had just rung for the children’s six o’clock supper. A group of adults stood at the end of the shooting gallery, and it was evident from their shrieks of laughter that fun was being had by all.

  Walking up to them, Paul found that Mr. Morley was the cause of their merriment. Beside the ordinary target practice, the shooting gallery provided more dramatic sport: a luridly coloured jungle panorama from behind which, if you inserted a penny in a slot, cardboard lions, tigers, giraffes, rhinoceroses and wild boar emerged and moved with spasmodic jerks across your field of vision. Albert Morley, squinting horribly down the barrel of a Winchester .22 repeater, was attempting to pick off these cardboard fauna. The shikari, one had to admit, was enjoying singularly ill luck; for the game always seemed to take one of their concerted leaps a fraction of a second before he fired. However, even if they had remained stationary, it was doubtful whether Mr. Morley would have hit one: his habit of shutting tight his eyes just as he pressed the trigger did not conduce to good marksmanship.

  Paul soon perceived the reason for this uncanny sense of anticipation on the part of the big game. Each time Albert Morley prepared to fire, the group behind him glanced towards the side of the booth. Teddy Wise stood there, carefully watching Mr. Morley’s trigger finger: as it flexed, Teddy jerked a small handle which operated the cardboard animals. It was evident that Mr. Morley, a very deliberate marksman, had already used up his pennyworth of sport, and Teddy was manipulating the jungle effects by means of a handle normally kept locked.

  It’s odd, reflected Paul as he watched this performance distastefully, that you cannot go on laughing at someone beyond a certain length of time without your laughter turning malicious, going bad on you. It had started as clean fun: Teddy had probably unlocked the handle and given it a turn in a spirit of generosity, so that Albert could have a few more shots after his pennyworth was exhausted. But the crowd had spotted him, secretly egged him on, and Teddy could never resist applause. And now they were all laughing in a different way. It was not pleasant. Even Teddy looked rather apologetic, when Mr. Morley had finished shooting and they all explained to him why his bag amounted to nothing.

  Albert Morley, indeed, came out of it best. He blinked uncertainly, looking from Teddy to the others, blushed, ducked his head once or twice with that odd little mannerism of his, then beamed all round, declaring that he wasn’t much of a shot and ought to have tried some target practice before going out after the big game. Yes, Mr. Morley could always be relied upon to take things in good part—to turn a joke sweet again, as you might say. Taking up another rifle, he moved across to the target alley. Teddy Wise, a little ashamed, no doubt, of his thoughtless prank, took Albert in hand, showing him how to aim and how to squeeze the trigger without jerking the rifle: but the shots still only found the outermost circle of the target, Paul noticed before he moved away.

  On his way back to the main building he was confronted by the two girls he had sat next to at the concert. Phyllis Arnold was looking more awkward and unhealthy than ever: her friend Janice had to prod her forward and act as spokesman.

  “Oh, Mr. Perry, pardon us intruding,” she said breathlessly, “but I think Phyll—Miss Arnold ought to see a doctor.”

  “Well, there’s one here. The camp doctor. You’d find him——”

  Janice Mears drew him aside, leaving her friend standing dismally on the gravel path, hands tucked into the wide sleeves of her white tennis-coat.

  “I know,” she said. “But she’s so stubborn. She’s a Christian Scientist, sort of. I thought perhaps you might be able to persuade her. She’s taken quite a fancy to you, see?”

  Oh lord! thought Paul. This is preposterous. Couldn’t she be content with the Left Book Club?

  “What’s the matter with her?” he asked.

  “She’s got blisters. Ever so big. Here, Phyllis, show Mr. Perry your blisters.”

  Flushing painfully, the girl came up to him, uncrossed her arms and pulled back the sleeves of her coat. On the forearms there were several blisters, nearly as big as golf-balls.

  “Good God!” exclaimed Paul in a shocked voice. “How on earth did you get these? When did they come?”

  The girl began to snivel wretchedly. Her friend spoke for her again.

  “They came up quite soon after she got back from the treasure-hunt.”

  “You’ve not been experimenting with mustard gas, by any chance?” Paul asked lightly.

  “Why, Mr. Perry, of course I haven’t,” said Phyllis Arnold. “Whatever made you think——?”

  “They’re the sort of blisters it gives you, that’s all. You must have burnt yourself. Primus or something, was it?”

  “But I didn’t burn myself. They just came.”

  “Oh well, never mind, the doctor’ll soon put them right. Shall we drop in on him now?”

  “I wouldn’t care to see a doctor, thank you very much all the same,” said Miss Arnold, with the sheepish, self-martyring expression of the weakly obstinate.

  Paul thought quickly.

  “I quite understand,” he said. “One must respect your convictions. But I think you ought to let the doctor see. There might conceivably be some epidemic of these things, and we ought to have them under observation at the start. Think of all the other people in the camp. After all, you needn’t have them treated, if you don’t want.”

  The girl accepted this unscientific and far from ingenuous piece of pleading: she was in evident pain as they walked towards the doctor’s chalet.

  “This is Miss Arnold,” said Paul, when Doctor Holford opened the door to them. “We thought——”

  “Yes,” broke in Janice Mears. “She’s got some awful blisters. Mr. Perry says they’re from mustard-gas.”

  “Don’t be absurd. I was only joking.” Paul looked distinctly uncomfortable. The young doctor gave him a cool, appraising look, invited them in, and inspected the girl’s forearms.

  “Hmm,” he said at last. “Nasty-looking chaps, aren’t they? But nothing to be alarmed about. We’ll just let out the fluid and put on some dry dressings.”

  Seeing Miss Arnold on the point of making her protest, Paul moved towards the door: he didn’t want to become involved in a controversy about Christian Science.

  “Perhaps you could call in again, Perry, in about quarter of an hour’s time?” said the doctor quietly, not looking up.

  “Certainly.”

  When the time was up, Paul returned to the doctor’s chalet. Phyllis Arnold and her friend had already left. Dr. Holford offered him a drink and a cigarette. He came straight to the point.

  “If you don’t mind my asking, Perry, how do you come to be acquainted with the effects of mustard-gas?”

  “A friend of mine at Cambridge, a chemist, was experimenting with the stuff and got a trace of it on his hand. But, look here, you’re not really suggesting——?”

  “I don’t mind telling you I’m puzzled about those blisters. The fact is, they do exactly resemble mustard-gas ones. Of course, it’s fantastic: but the girl can’t give any account of them. ‘They just came,’ she says. One wouldn’t think twice about it, but for these other things that’ve been happening in the camp.”

  “But, surely you have to spray the stuff. It’d be impracticable——”

  “Inside the camp, perhaps. But don’t forget the treasure-hunt.”

  “If it was done somewhere along the treasure-trail, more than one person would have been affected.”

  “I’m quite aware of that.” Like many of his profession, Dr. Holford disapproved of laymen infringing upon its mysteries. He went on, in a more distant voice,” And, by the way, I don’t think it was
wise on your part to mention mustard-gas in front of those two young ladies. I did my best to pooh-pooh the notion; otherwise it’d have been all round the camp by now.”

  It soon was. It would have taken a stronger-minded person than Miss Janice Mears to keep such a good thing to herself. As soon as she had persuaded Phyllis Arnold to lie down, she sought out her particular boy-friend of the moment and told all. In half an hour, so ripe for rumour had Wonderland become, half the camp knew that the Mad Hatter had struck again—this time, with poison-gas. The casualty list quickly mounted from one girl with blisters to a dozen, a score, fifty visitors at death’s door. The evening dew was falling, but its healing properties were lost to-day: a different, a poisonous dew was in people’s minds. They glanced at each other doubtfully, furtively examined their own flesh, like men in a plague-stricken town.

  At this point Mr. Thistlethwaite gathered together all the members of the Sports Committee he could find, and they went in a body to the manager’s office. Captain Wise, who had already heard the rumours, was evidently as bewildered as the rest of them. The mustard-gas theory would no doubt be soon disproved: Dr. Holford was an able young man and he had every confidence in him: but meanwhile the damage was being done. Did they not think it was time for him to call in the police? Miss Jones suggested that this would only heighten the general panic; but Captain Wise, perplexed and irritable, snubbed her unmercifully.

  Then, after a good deal of heated but fruitless discussion, Mr. Thistlethwaite took the floor. Let a compromise be made, he pronounced weightily: they did not want the publicity that would be attached to police intervention, but at the same time they could no longer remain inactive in the face of a menace that struck at the heart of the community. Let them employ the services of a private detective. He himself, as it happened, numbered one such among his clientèle: a thorough gentleman—that went without saying—and a brilliant investigator at the top of his profession: a Mr. Strangeways. Mr. Thistlethwaite might be able to induce him to take up the case, if he happened to be at liberty just now. The committee approved of this decision, and in a few minutes Miss Jones was putting through a trunk call to London.

  PART II

  Mr. Thistlethwaite Measures Up

  IX

  THE NEXT MORNING, after breakfast, Mr. Thistlethwaite took Paul Perry aside. They walked over towards the bowling-green, where already some of the older visitors were getting down to their sober rites, and sat on the grass terrace above. Mr. Thistlethwaite, evidently full of matter, was in no hurry to release it: the leisurely movements of the players, their no less deliberate badinage, the morning sunlight that had all the day before it—everything in sight suggested, like Mr. Thistlethwaite’s own drill-clad bulk, otium cum dignitate.

  “It was a relief, sir, that the fancy-dress dance last night passed off without incident.”

  “It was indeed.”

  “Well played, sir! A beautiful wood! I always think, Mr. Perry, that bowls is a peculiarly English game, exercising to the full—as it does—the qualities of patience, good temper, forethought and harmless rivalry. It is, too—correct me if I am wrong—the one national pastime which has not yet succumbed to the taint of professionalism.”

  “What about polo?”

  “I was speaking, sir, of democratic pastimes,” replied Mr. Thistlethwaite with some severity. “Polo is a rich man’s game. None the worse for that, you may say. Many of my gentlemen indulged in the sport—hard knocks and no ill-feeling—a manly game, without question. But not open to the masses, and therefore not to be specified as a typical English sport. No, sir.”

  “I suppose bowls does exemplify our national character,” said Paul, playing up to the fantasy. “Making a virtue out of bias, for one thing. Reaching our objective by a devious route. That is what foreigners call ‘British hypocrisy’: but we know better: we know it is bowls.”

  “You are rallying me, sir, I perceive,” Mr. Thistlethwaite replied good-humouredly. “Ah well, who would imagine, gazing upon this innocent scene, that the shadow of death overhangs it?”

  “Who indeed?” Paul glanced at his companion’s face, and saw that it had indeed assumed a funebrial expression. “But surely you don’t think this Mad Hatter person would——”

  “The Angel of Death may hover, sir. It is for us to ensure that he does not swoop.”

  “It sounds as if we needed an anti-aircraft gun more than a private detective.”

  Mr. Thistlethwaite waved this aside with an indulgent gesture—a gesture misinterpreted by Albert Morley, who was walking on the far side of the bowling-green, as a royal invitation. He came round to them, bobbed anxiously once or twice, and sat down on the grass nearby. It was typical of his indecisiveness of mind that he neither sat near enough to include himself in the group nor far enough away for them to be able to ignore him.

  Mr. Thistlethwaite eyed the little man speculatively for a moment, then addressed himself to Paul.

  “We were speaking of death, sir,” he pronounced in sombre tones. Mr. Morley started, his head shying away from them like a jibbing horse’s.

  “Death,” continued Mr. Thistlethwaite, “the greatest Demagogue of all. Hem. Now, sir, as one trained to accurate observation, you are at a great advantage in estimating the psychological reactions, the general temper and morale of a community. Would you say that there has been any marked change amongst us here since yesterday?”

  “Well, I think people are feeling a bit ashamed of the panic they got into last night. And, when people feel that kind of relief and humiliation, they’re apt to take out their irritation on someone else.”

  “Quite. A sagacious observation, if I may say so. People are looking for a victim, a scapegoat. Pray proceed.”

  “There’s also a noticeable closing of the ranks. Esprit de corps is rearing its ugly head.”

  “Not perhaps the terms in which I should express it myself, but undeniably true. The presence of a public enemy in our midst, which at first created mild annoyance and curiosity, then mutual resentment and suspicion, has now brought us to a third stage. Those who were loudest in clamouring that the management should take action, and in blaming its inefficiency, are now the first”—Mr. Thistlethwaite, with a benign nod of the head, sanctioned his own colloquialism—“the first to rally round. Miss Gardiner will serve as one instance. Captain Wise—I say this from inside knowledge—is being positively embarrassed with offers of assistance. Aside from which, the generality of visitors, who might well have been expected to—ah, as young Mr. Wise would put it—to clock out in droves, are now feeling it a point of honour to stay on and outface the aggressor. Let him beware,” Mr. Thistlethwaite concluded, “who thinks to twist the lion’s tail too far.”

  “Aren’t we wandering rather far from the subject of death?” asked Paul.

  His companion’s eye followed the course of a wood which, carrying acute bias, swept up the green, curled round the obstructing screen of bowls and came gently to rest against the jack.

  “Sir,” he said, “however far we wander, we cannot get away from death. However, let us by all means return to our muttons. My argument tends towards this conclusion: suppose the Mad Hatter’s outrages were aimed at demoralising the visitors and thus damaging Wonderland itself: this effect has signally failed of achievement; the miscreant cannot fail to have realised it by now, and we might therefore expect a cessation of hostilities on his part, especially as it has been announced in public that the management has called in a trained investigator.”

  “Well, that’ll be a relief for everyone.”

  Mr. Thistlethwaite raised a minatory finger. “But this hypothesis may be wrong. It is possible that these outrages are aimed finally at a single individual.”

  “Oh, but surely, I mean to say——” protested Albert Morley, who had been bouncing about on the grass in evident impatience.

  “Allow me to pursue my argument. Let us suppose that I have a private motive for wishing to murder you, Mr. Morley——”


  Albert stared at him, pale, transfixed, horrified.

  “—or vice versa,” conceded Mr. Thistlethwaite. “How easy to carry out a series of practical jokes, the victims chosen at random; and then, having established an atmosphere of practical joking, to launch an attack upon the real victim. This would appear to be no more than another joke—one which unfortunately had gone too far. If carefully disguised, it would arouse no suspicion at all of deliberate homicide. What do you say, Mr. Morley?”

  “I suppose it’s possible. But this motive business—I mean, how could you ever find out——?”

  “Yes,” said Paul. “Amongst nearly five hundred people, it’d be the devil of a job to discover who had motives for murdering whom.”

  “We can eliminate a good many, sir. It is logical to suppose that the criminal worked out his plan of campaign before coming to Wonderland, which means that his prospective victim is not someone he has met since arriving here, but a person acquainted with him in ordinary life.”

  “You mean, if we could find out which of the visitors knew each other before coming here, the search for the criminal and his victim could be confined to them?”

  “Just so. It is possible even that they are of the same family. Most murders are for gain: supposing X murders Y in order to profit by his will, the motive—in ordinary circumstances—is dangerously apparent; the police need not look further than the family circle. But an apparently accidental death, the result of a misplaced practical joke which is itself only one of a series, taking place in a large community, would conceal such a motive most effectively.”