The Dreadful Hollow

by Nicholas Blake

  Excitement, however, was just what Celandine seemed unable to avoid. As they returned to the drawing room, Nigel saw in her eyes that strange exhilaration which he had been noticing, off and on, since her birthday party.

  “I couldn’t help hearing some of what you were saying out there. I can’t wait to hear the sequel. Charles and Mark passing each other on a narrow country road, both so deep in thought that they didn’t notice each other. So then—?”

  “Celandine, don’t you think you ought to go to bed?” said Mark Raynham. “You know what the doctor—”

  “And miss the denouement? Not for anything, my dear. Now stop fussing about me. Let’s go on with the truth game.”

  “I don’t like it. It’s a game apt to end in tears,” said the vicar, his rough voice softened and sad now.

  “Nobody’s even started playing the truth game yet,” said Nigel. “You don’t seem to realize you’re all involved in a murder investigation. And lies, whatever motive you tell them from, won’t in the end save the guilty. The innocent don’t need them. Charles now—”

  “Well, what about me?” Charles Blick was sitting on the arm of Rosebay’s chair. He had kept close to her ever since their arrival at the house.

  Nigel pointed a dogmatic finger at him: “You and your handkerchief. You know perfectly well when and where you lost it. You tied it loosely round your hand when a needle of those binoculars drew blood from you. You ran out of this house soon after, and in your agitation you didn’t notice the handkerchief had dropped off. It was your blood on it. Why didn’t you tell the police that? Because you suspected Rosebay had picked it up, somewhere in the hall or the front garden where you dropped it. Rosebay had picked it up, and planted it in the wood; and therefore Rosebay was a murderess.”

  Charles had been on his feet, vainly trying to speak. Now he exclaimed, “You’re utterly wrong! I never thought it was Bay who—”

  “Then who did you think had found it? Who did you think you were protecting?” asked Nigel sharply.

  “You’ve got it all wrong, damn you,” Charles replied with a sort of obstinate energy. “I wasn’t protecting anyone. I didn’t lose the handkerchief here at all. It was on my hand when I got home.”

  “So you naturally put it in the dirty-clothes basket?”

  “I—no, I didn’t. I just stuffed it in a drawer, I expect.”

  “Or into your pocket, perhaps? So, a night or two later, when you thought you’d got your father’s blood on your hands, out it came again and—”

  “Nigel!” Celandine’s cool voice, with a touch of rebuke in it, made them all look at her. “Nigel, please! I’m sure you have some reason for talking like this, but it’s terribly melodramatic—and these are my friends, you know.”

  “I’m sorry, but you asked for the truth game. It’s not a game one can play in kid gloves. Shall we stop it? Are you all too afraid of the truth to go on?”

  There was a stir and then a silence in the drawing room.

  “If Charles did not do it, he is lying to protect either Rosebay or Stanford; they’re the most likely ones to have found the handkerchief, and committed the crime. The police will very likely arrest Charles if further evidence doesn’t turn up.”

  Rosebay gave a sobbing gasp, and reached for Charles’s hand.

  “He had a strong motive. He was on the spot. His handkerchief was found there. And now—the police don’t know this yet—he has been caught out in a flagrant lie. Why should he say he walked home by Fenny Cross, when he didn’t? Because he had to be somewhere away from here when the crime was committed. It sounds like the lie of a guilty man.”

  “But look here,” said Mark, “I thought it depended upon some sleeping draught Sir Archibald took. How could Charles have given it to him?”

  Nigel told them about the sleeping pill which Sir Archibald carried in his silver matchbox. “He may have taken it before leaving here.”

  “Oh, thank heavens for that,” exclaimed Celandine. “I knew the police suspected Rosebay or me of giving it to him.”

  “I’m afraid that doesn’t clear things up at all,” Nigel said. “The murderer might have removed the pill while Sir Archibald was asleep from a drug administered to him in his drinks here—it was not a secret that he often carried a sleeping pill with him. Or it may just have fallen out of the box and been absorbed in the water where his body lay. But, if he did take it here, then the field of suspects is widened to include Charles, and the vicar, and Daniel Durdle. Are you quite sure you didn’t see him taking it, Celandine?”

  “No. I didn’t see him. But that means nothing.”

  “Very well then. It’s possible—I’m giving you the Superintendent’s view—that Mark or Durdle is lying about his movements that night. But there’s no material evidence against them whatsoever. Nothing but a possible motive—not even a strong one in Durdle’s case. So we come back to Charles.”

  “Stop it! I can’t stand this any more! It wasn’t Charles!” Rosebay had dragged her hand away from his, and was on her feet in front of him.

  “How do you know?” asked Nigel.

  “Because I did it.”

  “Bay! What are you saying? Do pull yourself together!”

  “Don’t listen to her! It’s crazy. She—”

  “No, Charles, I’ve had enough. You must listen.” Rosebay’s voice was steady now, and deep. She looked a different woman; standing there with her head thrown back, upright and tense, her hands clasped in front of her, she reminded Nigel of a student facing the ordeal of her first public performance. The green eyes, the pallor, the glorious bay-red hair—it was as if one saw them for the first time, heightened and composed into breathtaking beauty by the exaltation that seemed to possess her. She had found herself at last; awkwardness, self-distrust, immaturity all dropped off like ill-fitting clothes. And she held her audience, for the first and perhaps the last time.

  “I was listening at the door nearly all the time that night. Of course I was, Dinny. I heard everything he said. I knew he would stop our money, and stop me marrying Charles. I’ve always been a coward. You know why I’m so frightened of Daniel Durdle?—because he’s not right in the head, and he made me think I might have inherited madness too. I think I did go mad that night for a while, but I stopped being a coward. Something sort of snapped in my head as I listened, and I felt different—quite calm and cool. I determined to catch Sir Archibald when he left the house, and if he didn’t listen to my pleadings, I’d kill him. I knew I’d be suspected if his body was found near here, but I wouldn’t be able to take it far away. My brain was working beautifully. I saw at once how to do it. I went up and fetched a dark coat of father’s, and a hat of his like Sir Archibald was wearing, and took them outside, to the place where I was going to meet him. The only thing I was afraid of was Charles’s turning up. But I heard footsteps going away along the road at the end of the garden, and I knew that must be Charles. Soon afterward, Sir Archibald came out. I intercepted him on the path, well away from the house, so nobody should hear us. He wouldn’t listen to me. He said an awful thing, and I saw red. I just hit out at him wildly—hit him on the temple with my fist—and he fell down. His eyes seemed to go white in the darkness. I thought he was dead, and I suddenly realized I hadn’t really meant to kill him—it had been sort of a phantasy—you know?—which had come true in spite of me. Oh, I can’t explain that. Well, I thought he was dead, and I didn’t want him dead any more; but I had to get rid of him. I couldn’t stand his white eyeballs staring up at me. I wheeled out Dinny’s carriage and dragged him into it. It was then I heard him breathing. A beastly snoring noise. I might have spared him if he hadn’t made it. But it disgusted me—like the noise something makes that hasn’t been killed properly, and you just want to finish it off. So I wheeled him up to the quarry and pushed him over and put the carriage back in the shed. It didn’t seem like me doing all this, but somebody else inside me. Perhaps I really was mad. Anyway, I put on father’s long coat and hat, and hurried
down to the Hall. I knew the dogs would bark if I went through the back courtyard, and they’d think it was him returning home. And if anyone happened to see me, they’d only see a figure in a hat and coat like him. Then I came back here. But there was still a light on downstairs, so I had to wait till Dinny went to bed before I could creep in. It wasn’t till nearly midnight that her bedroom light went out. I was terrified that she might have wanted me to put her to bed, and somehow found out I wasn’t in my room. But she got Charity instead. . . .I’m sorry about your handkerchief, Charles. I’d been keeping it here”—she touched her breast—“because it was yours. I wanted something to wipe my hands on, after I’d—after I put him in the quarry. Then I crumpled it up and threw it away. I didn’t really think whether anyone would find it. But next morning I went in the wood to look for it, and I couldn’t find it myself; it was dark when I threw it away, and I couldn’t remember just where. I never meant it to incrim—incriminate you.”

  Rosebay Chantmerle paused. Whatever emotions she had aroused in her audience—and goodness knows, thought Nigel, they must be a remarkable assortment of emotions—none of them in the room was able to say a word. Rosebay looked round at them, the light visibly dying from her eyes. Then, in a quiet tone: “I don’t think there’s anything more for me to say now.”

  “Well, actually there is one thing. What did you do with the hat?” asked Nigel.

  “The hat?”

  “Yes, your father’s hat. I imagine you replaced the coat in his wardrobe: that would be the one the police took away this afternoon. But the hat—you might have left hairs in it, or—”

  “I burnt the hat that night in the incinerator. I would have burnt the coat too, but I was afraid the buttons mightn’t be destroyed. So I just brushed it very carefully and put it back.” She gazed sadly for a moment at Nigel, as if he had somehow betrayed her. Then she said, “Is that all? I’d like to go now, please.”

  Nigel nodded to her. The moment the door was shut, he said urgently to Charles, “Go along. Don’t leave her alone. Don’t let her out of your sight. Please do what I tell you.”

  When the three were alone, Nigel turned to Celandine. “Have you missed one of your father’s hats?”

  “No. They were there when the police opened the wardrobe. A tophat, a boater, a light gray Homburg, and a few caps.”

  “I simply can’t understand it,” said the vicar. “Rosebay? No, I don’t believe it. Do you, Strangeways?”

  “Her account of her movements fitted the timetable. And there was a lot of convincing psychological detail.”

  “Bay is a very imaginative girl,” said Celandine. “I didn’t know she was all that much in love with Charles, though—enough to try and put her head in a noose for him. Of course she didn’t do it.”

  Something in Celandine’s voice made the two men look at her sharply. She was reclining gracefully upon the sofa, her profile clear-cut against the flowered wallpaper. And she resembled Primavera no longer, but an avenging Artemis. Her words came cold and hard, as if chipped out of marble. “I know she did not do it. And I won’t allow her to take the blame for a—for a coward and weakling like Charles. Not for him, of all people.”

  “You know?”

  “Yes, Nigel. I know because—well, I have been protecting him too. A woman never forgets her first lover. He’s like her firstborn: whatever he may do to her, she keeps a soft spot for him in her heart—a special niche.”

  “You’ve been protecting him?”

  “That night, when Sir Archibald left, I wheeled my chair down the hall after him. I felt as if he contaminated my house. I opened the front door, to air it. He’d only gone twenty or thirty yards, I suppose. I heard him say, ‘Charles? What on earth are you doing up here.’ That’s all I heard. I closed the door and went back to the drawing room.”

  “You’ll swear to that in court?” asked Nigel.

  “Certainly.” Her beautiful lips were set firm as a statue’s. “I’d have kept it a secret forever. But not now, not after he’s let Bay crucify herself to save his skin. Oh no.”

  Ten minutes later, Nigel and the vicar were walking down the track from the quarry, up which they had come on Nigel’s first afternoon at Prior’s Umborne. Mark Raynham looked grim and deeply disturbed. “I never ought to have done it,” he said, slashing with his stick at a wayside weed. “I don’t know what your game was, but I don’t like the taste of it.”

  “Nor do I. But we’re dealing with someone who is clever and wicked. Really wicked. You played up very well.”

  “Charles wicked? Oh no, you’re wrong, there.”

  “I don’t mean Charles Blick.”

  Mark limped on a few strides, then stopped dead. “But in that case—”

  Nigel returned his gaze, somberly and in silence. The countryside about them, under the darkening sky, had the isolated look of a deaf mute. Mark’s face flooded with an apprehension such as Nigel had rarely seen.

  “No. It’s not possible.” He repeated it, louder, desperately—“I tell you, it’s not possible. . . .Are you trying to tell me they were both in it together? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “No,” said Nigel gently, “it doesn’t.”

  “But then—” Mark’s voice thickened and choked, as if the word which lay on his tongue were a hideously rapid cancer. He moved on again, stumbling fast down the rough track: he might have been trying to shake Nigel off, or to escape some invisible Fury.

  “You can never prove it,” he said at last, breathing hard.

  “Possibly not.”

  “Why in God’s name did you have to pick on me as—?”

  “I’m sorry. But you couldn’t want the innocent to go on suffering. It was the only way.”

  They were approaching the village now. Mark Raynham’s face, taut with anguish, turned to Nigel: “You said, ‘the only way.’ Very well. I’m going home now to write out a confession. Good-by.”

  18 I Hate the Dreadful Hollow

  “THIS IS A case,” said Nigel, “which has been fogged from the start because the innocent—three of our suspects—insisted on behaving as if they were guilty. And they did this because they were in fact laboring under heavy loads of guilt, but not about Sir Archibald’s death.”

  It was nearly 11:30 on the same night. Nigel and Superintendent Blount were sitting in their room at The Sweet Drop. Nigel had given Blount an account of what had happened since they parted at the Moreford works; it was a somewhat censored version, but the Superintendent’s outraged sense of decorum could not be restrained throughout. He puffed, clucked, gave scandalized ejaculations; and when Nigel came to the trap he had laid, which involved Mark Raynham, Blount exclaimed, “Och no! That’s beyond everything! I’d lose my pension if I did that. See here, Strangeways—”

  “I’ve no pension to lose. I had to smoke the criminal out. And that did it. The bait was snapped up very nicely.”

  “M’phm, I dare say. But—”

  “Are you absolutely certain that chap’s reliable you sent to the vicarage?”

  “Don’t fash yourself about that. He’ll not let the vicar out of his sight. Were you afraid he’d try to make a run for it?”

  “No. I’m afraid he might cut his throat after writing this confession.”

  Mark Raynham sealed up the envelope and sat back with a glance at the plain-clothes man stolidly entrenched in his armchair. They never took drinks when on duty. Nor did he have any sleeping drugs. Mark shivered at the image that came into his mind. He had loved, not wisely but too well. Not once, but twice. He had been exalted, then cast down; transfigured, and fooled—utterly fooled. Yet his love, against all reason, against disillusionment even, survived.

  “Charles Blick, for instance,” Nigel was saying. “He’s been hamstrung throughout by a sense of guilt at having let Celandine down twenty years ago. All his evasions, his lies, his quixotic behavior, and his ambivalent treatment of Rosebay, can be traced back to that. Rosebay’s is more complex—genuine love for her sister, som
e disgruntlement at always being overshadowed by her, mixed up with the guilt a healthy person feels who is in an intimate relationship with a cripple—and the guilt she feels about her own resentment at being tied to a cripple.”

  Rosebay Chantmerle had gone to sleep. There was a smile on her face. She was dreaming, but not the bad dreams she had feared would come. Her last thought had been, “Charles does love me. I know that at last. I can’t understand anything else, but I don’t need to, now.”

  The church clock struck half past eleven. At the Hall, Charles was saying good night to his brother. “It’s all clear between me and Bay,” he told him.

  “I’m glad. Of course she’s too good for you. But—”

  “If they arrest me tomorrow, you’ll look after her, won’t you?”

  “They’ll not arrest you. I’ve seen it in the crystal. I’m psychic, old scout.”

  “Look here, what is all this about a dream you had? Everyone keeps yammering about it.”

  Blount gave Nigel a skeptical look. “And who’s your third guilty innocent?”

  “Mark Raynham. His first wife came to a bad end. But, being the man he is—a bit of a saint, you know—he took her guilt upon himself; if he’d been different, a better husband, she’d never have gone bad—that sort of thing. He’s a born self-torturer. One look at his face tells you that. So he fell in love again. With a beautiful and intelligent and difficult woman who is a cripple. Asking for more torture, wasn’t it? He’s the sacrificial type, like Rosebay. So now—well, he failed to save the first woman he loved; and when her successor looks to be in need of salvation, he goes and does a Sydney Carton. It’s not rational, it’s not sensible, it’s not very moral. But love and guilt have sparked together and blown all those considerations to Jericho. He’s beyond even realizing that a false confession won’t stand up to a moment’s expert scrutiny—is much more likely to expose the person it’s meant to shield.”