“Horrible!” interjected the doctor.
“A bad shock for anyone, let alone her husband,” Sir Clinton agreed. “There was nothing he could do for her. So after a while he left the body on the edge of the pool and made his way hell-for-leather down the glen. There’s a crofter’s cottage near the junction of the two glens, and he went there, looking for assistance. The crofter and his wife weren’t too keen on the business, it seems. It was near dark by this time, and they didn’t want to go up to Hart Lynn. I can guess why. There’s supposed to be a kelpie there.”
“A kelpie? That’s a water-spirit of sorts, isn’t it? But no one believes in kelpies nowadays, surely,” said the doctor.
“Not in Trafalgar Square, certainly. But you can take my word for it that in lonelier places there are still lots of folk who believe in the kelpie. They’ll tell you it swells torrents and devours women and children. And as that burn was in spate, I’m not surprised that the crofter boggled a bit at going up there in the dusk, if he believed in kelpies. However, his kindliness got the better of his fears, and he and his wife set off for the Lynn while Telford hurried on to get his car and bring up a doctor and the police.”
“I don’t envy him his drive,” the doctor commented. “In my line one gets inured to deaths, but not that kind of death. It must have been pretty ghastly for the poor devil. I know — none better — how he adored that unfortunate girl. It was touching.”
“I’ll go on,” Sir Clinton said. “He picked up a doctor and a couple of policemen — one was a sergeant — and drove them back as near the Lynn as the car would go. By that time it was dark; and they had to go about their work by the light of a flashlamp. They got Mrs. Telford’s body down to the car and so back to the cottage. The doctor drove the sergeant back to his home, so that he could make his report and then they could get to work next morning. The constable stayed the night at the cottage as company for Telford. He needed someone at hand, I gather, for he was completely shattered so far as nerves went. The doctor gave him a jag, probably, to let him get some sleep.”
Sir Clinton paused to light a cigarette and then continued his narrative.
“The only thing that was certain, at that stage, was that it was no accident. The pinioning proved that beyond any doubt. So it was either suicide or murder. The crofter’s wife deposed that a tramp or a tinker-body had passed her house in the afternoon, going up Glen Terret, so they set the machine going to trace him down. Beyond that, there was nothing more they could do until daylight.
“Next morning, a police surgeon and an inspector turned up. The doctor examined the body and found a slight fracture in the skull which seemed the most probable cause of death. But that really proved nothing, for there are rocks jutting up in the pool below the Lynn and it seemed quite likely that she’d struck one of them in her fall. The straps used to pinion her ankles and wrists were cheap things, such as you can buy in any chain store. Telford identified them as a pair he had bought himself for strapping some light stuff together in transit in the car. They had been lying about the cottage for a while, according to him. It seems that the strap round the ankles had been drawn tight, so tight that it marked the skin. The one round the wrists was far looser, a hole or a couple of holes short of the highest possible tension, they found.”
“Ah!” interjected the doctor, without defining his view.
“When it was light enough to make it worth while, the police got Telford to accompany them up to the Lynn. On the way up, he explained that he’d torn up the note which his wife had left for him and showed them where he’d pitched the fragments into the Terret. They hunted about, but could find nothing. That isn’t perhaps surprising, seeing that the burn was in spate.
“When they got up to the crofter’s cottage, they put the family through it to extract any evidence; but they got nothing out of that. No one had noticed Mrs. Telford passing. The tramp had come up to their door in the late afternoon, asking for a meal of sorts, but they hadn’t liked the look of him and had sent him about his business. They were able to describe him clearly enough. But just to finish with him, I may as well say that he’s out of the picture. He was run down and cleared himself completely when he was questioned.
“When they got up to the Lynn, the inspector began to keep an eye open. It had been rainy weather just before this, and the soil took imprints fairly well. The track itself offered nothing; but when they came to the place where one steps off to go to the Lynn there were plenty of softish bits free of grass, with footmarks showing clearly enough. There weren’t many of them, and they were easily picked out from one another. The crofter was able to show them where he and his wife had gone on the previous night, so that eliminated two sets. The only other two were Mrs. Telford’s walking shoes and Telford’s town shoes. The tracks of both led down to the out-jutting rock and even appeared on some soil that had accumulated on top of it. The inspector made a careful examination and found that in every case of superposition, Telford’s prints had been made after those made by his wife. That, of course, fitted his story completely.”
“Suicide, then,” the doctor concluded. “No signs of any struggle, were there, or anything like that?”
“None whatever. The inspector concluded that it was a clear case. She’d gone up there, put the strap round her ankles, then she’d put her hands behind her back and pulled the strap round her wrists as tightly as she could. You can’t get a strap very tight, that way, as you’ll find if you try. The strapping was to prevent herself struggling to save herself in the water, for it seems she was a good swimmer. Then she had gone down, and apparently her head struck a rock, so that she died without any prolonged agony. Then Telford had come on the scene. They could see where he’d torn out grass and undergrowth in his scramble down to the water’s edge. It’s very nearly a perpendicular slope and he’d taken a risk or two.
“So there was the whole affair straightened out, apparently. The inspector thought so. All he wanted after that was enough facts to put in his notebook for his report. And with that in his mind, he began questioning Telford, rather aimlessly I gather. Had Mrs. Telford been in her usual spirits that morning? Had she shown any signs of being out of sorts? Anything peculiar in her manner during the last week or so? Did Telford know of anything that might be weighing on her mind? And so on. Just the kind of questions anyone might be moved to ask in the circumstances.
“But it was just here that the trouble began, unfortunately. Telford, according to the inspector, behaved as if he’d something to conceal. What he was hiding, the inspector couldn’t make out, but he certainly got the feeling that Telford was keeping something back. I gather that the inspector put Telford down as a liar, and none too clever a liar at that. As this suspicion grew, the inspector began to think things over afresh, and an awkward notion came into his mind. What about a suicide pact? Suppose the Telfords had made one; and that Telford, after letting his wife kill herself, had drawn back when it came to his turn? That kind of thing does happen, you know.
“Now that idea would fit the evidence well enough, as you can see, except the loose strapping of the girl’s wrists. It doesn’t conflict with the footprint evidence; for one can assume that they went to the Lynn together and that Telford walked behind the girl when they came to the path leading to the fall. And, unfortunately, the crucial bit of evidence that would side-track this theory has disappeared — the letter Telford said he found waiting for him at the cottage when he got home.”
“Which may or may not have existed,” interposed the doctor.
“Exactly. There’s no proof either way, except Telford’s word. The whole affair is worrying Forrest badly, I can see, because he happened to be a friend of the Telfords. It’s a hateful business to even seem to suspect a friend of foul play. On the other hand, just because he is a friend of Telford’s, he can’t afford to let things slide. He’s in a position of trust and he can’t let even a suspicion arise that he’s putting friendship before business. Naturally, he’d like to
know of any evidence which might throw even a glimmer of light on it all. And, preferably, he’d rather have evidence that would clear Telford of any shadow of suspicion.”
“I can understand that,” admitted the doctor. “I rather like young Telford, from what I’ve seen of him.”
“Then I’ll come to grips with the business,” Sir Clinton went on. “Forrest wants to know what was wrong with that girl when she came to you for treatment. I can see what he’s thinking about: cancer, or something like that, which might prey on the girl’s mind and make her afraid for the future. She’s dead now, poor little thing, and nothing can harm her. But Telford’s case is still in the balance. I don’t know how far your etiquette allows you to talk, Malwood; but if you can say anything tending to clear Telford, it’s purely for Forrest’s hearing. It wouldn’t become public knowledge without your consent. What about it?”
Dr. Malwood was not a person who could be rushed. He looked up at the cornice for some minutes without answering. Obviously he was weighing his decision carefully before coming down on one side or the other. At last he spoke.
“You remember how I ran across you and Wendover at Mollie Keston’s wedding, and we talked a bit about hormones? I’ve some recollection of telling you something about them. Well, in one case there’s apparently a rather complex relationship involved. The secretions of the pituitary gland act upon other glands and may stimulate them to produce a certain hormone which throws a woman off her balance, like dosing her with yohimbine. The actual sources of this stimulating hormone are the Graafian follicles. Knock some of them out of action with those highly-penetrating X rays I told you about, and you cut down the production of hormone to a normal output. Then the superexcitation of the patient would disappear.”
“I see your point,” Sir Clinton admitted, rather amused by Malwood’s cautious and impersonal treatment of the subject. “If a patient came to you suffering from a mild attack of nymphomania, that’s the treatment you’d try? And there’s a chance of a cure?”
“In one case I succeeded,” Malwood confirmed with an expressionless face.
“And the case, otherwise, might have been troublesome?”
“It was giving the patient trouble. Putting an almost unbearable strain on her power of self-control.”
“And the cure was complete?”
“So far as cutting down the output of hormone went, it was a complete success. Physically, the patient became quite normal again.”
“Physically, you say. What about the mental side?”
“She regained self-control completely. I’m quite satisfied on that score. But I’ll admit she seemed a little off her balance. I don’t mean insane or anything of that sort. Still, I noticed that as she improved physically, she seemed to grow more and more worried about something or other. I’m not a psychoanalyst, you know, in spite of our friend the poison-pen expert; and she didn’t confide in me so far as to discuss what her trouble was. Perhaps some reminiscence or other was troubling her. I’m merely telling you what any layman would have noticed in her at the time, I think.”
“You needn’t elaborate that,” Sir Clinton decided. “Just one more question. You saw her and her husband together afterwards. Was she as fond of him as ever, and vice versa?”
“Every bit,” Malwood answered promptly. “You can take that as definite. And he was just as keen on her, too.”
Sir Clinton reflected for some moments.
“I don’t think I need give Forrest all this. Put it in a nutshell, Malwood. You see no reason why they shouldn’t have been a perfectly normal, happy couple, once she was cured?”
“I know nothing against it,” the doctor declared, after a pause for consideration.
Sir Clinton noticed how carefully Malwood chose his words, but he abstained from comment on that point.
“Oh, none of us is omniscient,” he said, lightly. “You can’t bring yourself to say that she was of unsound mind, then? It would be useful to Forrest.”
Dr. Malwood shook his head decidedly.
“No, I certainly can’t. She was as sane as you or I, when she left my charge.”
“Pity, that. It would have closed the business. But in any case, it’s suicide on the face of the evidence, and I’m sure Forrest never believed it was anything else. He won’t stir up mud by hunting for a motive. That’s hardly his affair, so long as he’s sure there’s been no foul play.”
Malwood nodded absently and remained silent for a while.
“We medicals can’t afford to spend too much sentiment on casual patients,” he said at last, “but I’m sorry for poor young Telford. It’s the devil’s own business for him. I hate to think of it. She was such an attractive girl, and . . . Well, I thought I’d made everything straight for them.”
Sir Clinton seemed to have been following a different line of thought.
“She was in your care for a while,” he said. “Was she in your Institute all the time?”
“Oh, no,” Malwood explained. “She lived with her father for a bit at the start. There was no need for her to be on my premises until we actually began the X-ray treatment. My place isn’t gigantic, you know, Driffield. We can’t take in boarders who might just as well be living in town. We have to keep our rooms for people actually under treatment.”
“Naturally,” Sir Clinton agreed. “So she lived with her father for a few weeks while you were going over the case. Yes, obviously.”
Malwood was struck by something in Sir Clinton’s tone which suggested that, having got his answer, he was paying no attention to it but was thinking of something further.
“Penny for your thoughts,” he offered.
“I like that!” the Chief Constable retorted. “You charge three guineas for your thoughts, when a patient comes to you; and you expect to get mine for a penny.”
“Well, call it three guineas,” Malwood rejoined. “Then you’ll find yourself with something we medicals often get landed with: a bad debt to collect. Seriously, what’s in your mind?”
“Nothing to do with you,” Sir Clinton replied at once. “I was just wondering whether there were two letters waiting for Telford when he got back to that cottage, or one letter, or no letter at all. I must get Forrest to check that up, if he can.”
“I’ve played fair by you,” Malwood pointed out, rather disingenuously. “Suppose you do the same here.”
Sir Clinton laughed.
“How easily you rise to a fly, Malwood,” he retorted in a chaffing tone. “I was going to say that the thing’s obvious, but I forgot that Duncannon probably didn’t give you the names of his poison-pen suspects. I’ll tell you this. Both of them were acquainted, to some extent, with that unfortunate Telford girl.”
Malwood pondered for a time before saying anything.
“I see what you’re after, I think,” he declared finally. “You think that damned creature’s hand’s in the Telford case? When you talk about a second letter, you’re thinking of that? Wait a bit, I see it now! You mean that Mrs. Telford may have had one of these infernal productions by post that day and it drove her to suicide? And when Telford came home he found that letter along with the one she wrote to him. Naturally he’d destroy the anonymous one. . . .”
“And if her own letter mentioned the anonymous one, he’d have to destroy it also, or the whole affair would have come out. I don’t say it happened. But it’s a possibility. And in things of that sort one has to examine every possibility.”
“How could you check it?” asked Malwood.
“Easy enough. Glen Terret’s a lonely place. Very few people live up there. The postman won’t have the slightest difficulty in remembering if he had a letter for her that day. He might even remember what it looked like. But that’s Forrest’s business. My part’s merely to write him a confidential letter, putting him on the alert.”
“Well, if you turn out to be right, they ought to hang that poison-pen expert,” declared Malwood, bitterly.
“Need a new law for that, unfortu
nately,” Sir Clinton pointed out.
“Then the sooner they begin to think about it, the better,” said Malwood viciously. “I’d no notion that things like that could happen.”
“Don’t get so fierce about it,” said the Chief Constable soothingly. “It’s only an idea of mine, you know. There may be nothing in it at all.”
“Damnable!” was Malwood’s only comment.
Sir Clinton thought it best to divert the doctor’s mind from that subject.
“There’s another thing I wanted to ask you about. Mere curiosity this time, and it’s not one of your patients. Have you heard anything about old Lockhurst the stockbroker? I’ve met him once or twice. A decent old boy. Very likeable. I know he’s gone down with a heart-attack, but I’ve heard nothing further. Is he going on all right?”
Malwood shook his head doubtfully.
“He had a second collapse, not long after the first one.”
“Sorry about that. But he’s got over it?”
“He got over it wonderfully well,” Malwood answered. “But two doses of that trouble at his age aren’t much of a joke, Driffield. I’m told he’s doing pretty well, as well as one could expect. But even at the best it’ll be a while before he’s fit for much.”
“I’m very sorry,” Sir Clinton said, sincerely. “I rather took to him, from what I’ve seen of him. If I hadn’t a good stockbroker of my own, there’s no one I’d like better in that line than old Lockhurst. I don’t know where he gets his information, but I had a specimen of one of his predictions which surprised me more than a little.”
“I deal with him myself,” Malwood explained. “I’m no expert in stocks and shares, so I depend on his advice. He’s never let me down. The younger generation are rather apt to put him down as an old fogey. He’s a bit strait-laced in his moral views, you know. But it suits me.”
“Has he a partner to run his office while he’s on the sick list?”
Malwood shook his head.
“No, it’s a one-man business.”
Murder Will Speak Page 13
