The Witch of the Low Tide

by John Dickson Carr

  “Willingly. I mention the attack on Mrs. Montague only to emphasize what happened when Glynis Stukeley appeared in the case.”

  “Fair enough, then. Well, sir?”

  “Well! The enigmatic Glynis, who loved torturing people almost as much as she loved money, was blackmailing somebody. Who was being blackmailed? It was not Vince Bostwick; everyone agreed she had never been near Vince. She was not even asking money from Vince, a very wealthy man, as the price of silence about somebody else’s conduct.

  “This raised the obvious corollary question: from whom was the blackmailer asking hush-money, and why?

  “Every trail led to that house at Hampstead. Mrs. Montague, a morbidly respectable woman, hastily dismissed the servants on Friday evening. Whether or not Glynis had gone to the house too, it was plain she had been summoned or had invited herself; Marion described Glynis’s clothes too accurately for this to have been invention. Clearly Mrs. Montague wanted to confront Marion with Glynis. When Glynis failed to appear, she shouted ‘whore’ at Marion and all but caused her own death. Colonel Selby, who was supposed to be at his club, was in fact at my office nerving himself to ask advice. The conclusion seemed inescapable that the two persons being blackmailed were Marion Bostwick, the wife of a wealthy man, and Colonel Selby, who was at least well-to-do.

  “Then, next day, came the murder.

  “I have concealed several things from you, gentlemen—”

  “By jing, you have!” said Twigg. “But it’s the part about the murder I want to hear. You walked in there and found the body. How’d you tumble slam-bang, first crack out of the box, to that trick of moving the body from the house to the pavilion? How’d you guess Lady Calder had done that? How’d you reason it out?”

  “I did not reason it out.”

  “Ho?”

  “If you were ever to write such fiction, Inspector­—”

  Twigg lifted both fists.

  “I am quite serious,” said Garth, looking up in such a way that the other hesitated. “My main concern has been and will always be to protect Betty Calder. Let me see if I can explain it in another way.”

  He brooded for a moment

  “It was a very bad matter of seconds when I discovered Glynis Stukeley’s body and thought it was Betty’s. The relief, to find it was not, became a shock like that of pleasure. Under the surface of the mind began a train of associations with things I had seen. They were not conscious thoughts, any more than they are conscious thoughts just before a story-idea comes to us fully worked out.

  “If they had been conscious thoughts, while I moved from the body to the robe against the wall and back, they might have gone in the following sense. ‘Suppose Betty did this?’ I knew, of course, she could not have committed murder; she was incapable of that ‘But suppose she had; how could she have done it?’ The absence of footprints outside, the big canvas screen hiding the door of one little room from the door of the other room: these factors unconsciously gathered in a mind used to the tricks of fiction. They provided an explanation, which later proved to be the true explanation, in a shorter time than it takes to tell.

  “At that point I reached out, touched the teapot, and jumped back as though I had been burnt. I had not been burnt. The teapot was stone cold. I jumped back, smashing a cup, because at that instant I heard Betty’s voice calling my name.

  “It was as though a nightmare were coming true. If she had done this, she would be just there. The very fact you later used so devastatingly—that she could not have known I was inside the pavilion, unless she had been there to see me go in—confirmed my fancied reconstruction. The first thing I saw was a bicycle, just where it would be if she happened to be spinning a lie to throw off suspicion.

  “After which, I, the experienced in fiction, botched everything in fact.

  “No doubt I should have hurried her away from there immediately. No doubt I should have challenged her; explained what I suspected; and, if I insisted on joining the lies, found a more helpful one. I can only tell you that in her state of mind then it seemed far more necessary to reassure her, to support her, to give strength to a woman near collapse after what she had done. So I told her, as well as the police, the one thundering lie I did invent.”

  “Oh, ah! About the tea being still hot?”

  “Exactly. It would prove, if it were believed, that the murderer must have been inside the pavilion and strangled Glynis Stukeley there. But it was futile. You and Abbot arrived too soon. The subject of tea could not be mentioned until the tea would have been cold anyway. I can hardly blame you if you fail to understand.”

  Twigg, fists on hips, looked him up and down.

  “Well, Doctor, I’ll tell you what it is,” he said. “You did wrong. You now admit you did wrong. Apart from that, God’s truth!” And Twigg drew a deep breath. “You must think nobody was ever human except yourself, or ever made a fool of himself over a woman either, if you imagine for one minute I CAN’T understand.”

  “Amen!” said Abbot. “But I am interested in another aspect of this. Who or what made you make up your mind Colonel Selby must be guilty?”

  “You did. During a talk we had at Betty’s cottage later on Saturday evening.”

  “H’m. I fancied something of the sort. You said I reminded you of someone. Was it of Colonel Selby?”

  “Yes. Not in your personal appearance, as I told you. You are short; Colonel Selby was tall. Colonel Selby was cleanshaven; you have a moustache almost worthy of Napoleon’s Grande Armée. He was going bald; you have kept your hair. There were similarities much more striking.

  “Abbot, you have copied many of your mannerisms from Sir Edward Henry, who formerly was head of the police in India. The military carriage of the shoulders, the military style of speech, the curtness, the handkerchief in the sleeve. You smoke Indian cheroots and you’re a member of the Oriental, a military man’s club. You and Colonel Selby shared a certain near-dandyism of dress. Above all, you both had a fondness for violence and for much younger women—”

  “Just a moment! Hold hard, there!”

  “Can you deny this?”

  “Whether I deny it or not,” Abbot returned with acid politeness. “I suppose I should take it as a compliment. In your eyes, evidently, the late Colonel Selby was an admirable character.”

  “Admirable?” Garth repeated. “Hardly that. I rather liked the man. Before he lost his head and committed murder, I would have helped him if he had allowed it. However, just because no sermons are being preached, let’s not hold him up as an example for other men of uncertain age.

  “In fact, that is a part of the solution. To have seduced a girl of fourteen, no matter how physically mature she may have been, was as irresponsible as it was brutal and callous. In a girl more sensitive than Marion, who is not sensitive at all except where her safety is concerned, it could have caused psychological harm beyond repair. It’s true she was all too willing. It’s true he turned her into the driving force determined to continue this affair whatever happened. This very violence of his, when he did lose his head, was what most appealed to her own. She complained (you recall?) about the lack of it in other men. Do you also recall what occurred when you and I were talking in Betty’s sitting-room on Saturday night?”

  “Probably. Which particular occurrence?”

  “You were pacing back and forth in front of a mantelpiece with a number of silver-framed photographs on its ledge. Quite by accident I indicated a photograph of Betty and Glynis together. You turned round to look at it, just as Colonel Selby had done here in my consulting-room….”

  “Ah! And it unlocked memory?”

  “That was the memory I had been trying to pin down. That was why he ran away from me. Already he had given enough indications of his character. If he were sufficiently frightened, he would not hesitate to kill. ‘If Blanche ever suspected—!’ he had said in this room. Note, from what you told me, that both Colonel Selby and Mrs. Montague were in Fairfield on Saturday. But they were not st
aying in the same house. Mrs. Montague more than suspected; by that time she must have known. She was with relatives. He was at the Imperial Hotel, and could have gone out unobserved to Betty’s cottage.”

  “Yes. If he knew Glynis was there.”

  “Remember what else you told me. Glynis Stukeley had attached herself to (of all people) Michael Fielding. Why? The main reason, of course, must have been her wish for a spy-post close to me. I was next in line for amiable blackmail if, as Glynis believed, a reasonably well respected neurologist was carrying on an amiable intrigue with her sister.

  “But Glynis could not resist her passion for torturing people. She kept a close eye on all her victims; where was the profit in her game unless she did? She could have learned from Michael, well ahead, that Colonel Selby would see me on Friday night. Michael alone could have left a copy of By Whose Hand? in the waiting-room.

  “Colonel Selby did not understand what the book meant. But she thought he would. ‘My eye is upon you,’ she would be saying; and, as Glynis saw the matter, it must disturb him all the more because he would not be able to imagine how a reminder appeared there as though by magic. If we are seeking the real witch of the low-tide, we must look at Glynis Stukeley herself.

  “In the same way, she persuaded Michael to forge a note from me, saying that I should be in Fairfield at six o’clock. It was to disturb Betty, to keep Betty in a state of apprehension, while Glynis appeared to enjoy the spectacle.”

  “But how did she learn you were going there at that time? Or Colonel Selby was going there earlier in the day?”

  “In my opinion,” said Garth, “because Colonel Selby had made up his mind to kill her.”

  “Tut! I don’t see—”

  “You will in a moment. On Saturday night, as I think you do know, I had in some fashion to prove what I believed in order to defend Betty. The first thread to be followed was an interview with Marion; she herself brought it about at the Stag and Glove.

  “Marion had attacked Mrs. Montague. Her much-cherished lover was Colonel Selby, though she did not use his name. I did not believe she herself was concerned in the murder of Glynis, or even guessed—at the time—it was Colonel Selby who had done it. The interview was interrupted by a footstep outside the door, which she mistakenly supposed to be her husband’s. I learned nothing very coherent after that. The first thread snapped.

  “A second possibility of proof lay in a talk with Michael Fielding. The good Glynis might have betrayed to him the reason why she wanted that book left in the waiting-room. When I questioned Michael next day at the Palace Hotel, and said I knew he had done one other thing besides forge a letter, his demeanour showed Glynis had told him. But he would not admit it. The second thread snapped.”

  “Doctor,” interposed Twigg in a hoarser voice, “somebody had a try at strangling young Mr. Fielding in the billiard-room at the hotel. Lummy! Was it Colonel Selby? Could Mrs. Bostwick ’a’ put him up to doing that?”

  “She did,” Garth replied. “But Colonel Selby, now more than ever horrified at what he had been doing, could not go through with it. Michael might have seen—possibly did see—his assailant’s face. By that time he was far too frightened to speak. My third and last thread had snapped too.”

  He waited, looking at the desk, and then raised his eyes.

  “Let me recapitulate briefly a compressed and ugly series of events. When I left the house at Hampstead, not very late on Friday night, Marion and Vince were still there. Colonel Selby returned, presumably from his club. After the assault on Mrs. Montague, these two victims of the blackmailer, Colonel Selby and his ward, took serious counsel on what must be done.

  “All this is conjecture, I acknowledge! But it is probable.

  “Colonel Selby confessed to Marion he had visited me without giving anything away. He did mention the red-bound book invitingly left open. When Marion reads, she reads Vince’s favourite books. If Colonel Selby up to then did not understand the meaning of the story, Marion did—and told him.

  “Very probably she confessed to him she had burst out against Mrs. Montague. The blackmailer, Glynis Stukeley, was moving ever closer. At any moment this situation would end in catastrophe from somebody’s word or deed unless Colonel Selby acted.

  “Matters had fallen out so that a pattern could be arranged. In Marion’s hearing I had said I meant to visit Betty in Fairfield late on the following afternoon. There is only one train that would get me there: the 5:32 at Fairfield station. Meanwhile, Mrs. Montague was awake and crying out to be taken away from the house. She did not fear Colonel Selby; she had no reason to do so; she was only horrified at him. She had relatives in Fairfield. He could take her there, provided he did not stay in the same house.

  “In short, why was everybody at Fairfield the next day? Because Colonel Selby saw a covering screen in bringing together as many innocent persons as possible; and Glynis Stukeley must be lured to her sister’s house and killed.

  “Lured, how? Because she could not resist the bait.

  “Glynis, as we know by Marion’s confession, was sitting in a cab and watching the Hampstead house on Friday night. She longed beyond any dream of bliss to know what had taken place there. She saw me arrive, and Vince soon afterwards, and then the police.

  “No doubt the presence of the police drove her away. To where?

  “Remember, she had persuaded Michael to leave the book in the waiting-room for Colonel Selby, and to remain there afterwards until Michael heard from her. Since I was at Hampstead, she thought it safe to make a quick call at Harley Street. She could learn the result of the cat-and-mouse game with Colonel Selby; she could telephone one of her victims at Hampstead and discover what happened inside those maddening walls.

  “She telephoned from Harley Street—and spoke to Colonel Selby, whose plan had been prepared. If she had not telephoned to him, he would have telephoned her at her lodgings later.

  “They were all going to Fairfield next day, he said. Glynis could not resist that. Particularly she could not resist the news that I was going ‘late in the afternoon.’ Before she left Harley Street, she persuaded the frantic Michael to write that forged note. If those two had remained much longer, they would have met me coming home. But, as we can tell by the hour of the postmark on the letter, they were away in good time.

  “You know the result.

  “Colonel Selby had no intention of throwing any blame on Betty, who (let us admit it) brought the blame on herself. She was in the house, upstairs, when the murderer arrived and left unseen. Nor do I need to repeat what Betty herself did.”

  Twigg cleared his throat, and seemed in some danger of being strangled by his own collar.

  “But what about Mrs. Bostwick?” he demanded. “Doctor, are you sure Colonel Selby and Mrs. Bostwick didn’t work out that scheme together? With her egging him on?”

  “No, I am not sure,” Garth said curtly. “It is only that I do not think so. Colonel Selby was the sort of man who believes all business-affairs, including murder, should be carried on the shoulders of the man alone. On Sunday, however…”

  “Oh, ah? On Sunday?”

  “Marion, even after the interview late Saturday night, did not think I knew enough to be a serious danger. She will never confess where a third party can hear her; in that respect she is a far stronger vessel than was her late lover. But she heard that Michael, who might know the truth because he might know the meaning of the book, was to be questioned in her presence.

  “Abbot, do you recall how abruptly she left our gathering in the lounge of the Palace Hotel? It was not because I tried to drive her away, as you thought. On the contrary! I was approaching the question of the book, but I had not reached it. She left because she learned Michael was another of Glynis’s conquests. What Glynis knew, Glynis’s men were apt to know. What Michael knew, I might get from him. Marion’s secret—as yet, she thought, one of adultery alone—was in great danger.

  “She had already taken counsel with Colonel Selby. He wa
s at the Imperial Hotel, just next door to the Palace in Victoria Avenue. More than that! A side door in the corridor, at the end of the billiard-room wing, was closed when I went down to the billiard-room but open shortly afterwards. Someone had slipped from one hotel to the other.”

  Abbot grunted.

  “I remember,” he said. “Mrs. Bostwick spoke her real thoughts at last? And frankly asked the murderer of Glynis Stukeley to silence Michael Fielding? But she must have suspected, at least?”

  “Oh, yes. By that time she suspected. I think she suspected from the time she talked to me the night before. Colonel Selby tried. And he could not go through with it. There is a limit.”

  “As to that,” Abbot murmured, “one wonders.”

  “I wondered,” said Garth. “They had frightened Michael so much that I could not persuade him to speak. He might never speak. You told me the inquest was next day; that Betty might be arrested; and I was desperate. Then it occurred to me, last night, that the person who might be forced into speech was Colonel Selby himself.

  “Already his conscience gave him no second’s peace. The attempt on Michael showed that in his code you do many things; you commit adultery and you commit murder. But you do not let an innocent person suffer for it and you do not dream of letting a woman suffer.

  “You know what I did. I had talked both to him and to Mrs. Montague this afternoon, to make sure of my ground. Already I had prepared a full statement of what I knew, or thought I knew. I would hand this statement to him in the presence of a third person, having hinted—not too broadly—what was in my mind. I would tell him to give it to Mrs. Montague, though in fact it was intended for him alone. Of course, he would read it first. If I were wrong in what I believed, he would roar out and tell me so. If I were right…

  “Well, I had hoped to have Michael there for more questioning and possible identification. That failed. But it was not necessary. Luck (if it can be called that) put in the ugliest possible position the woman with whom I have the honour to be very much in love. I had to stress all this when I spoke in Colonel Selby’s hearing. I had to make you, Inspector, present your full case and to admit its damning features. I had to make sure he would follow me. And then I had to wait.”