The Hollow Man

by John Dickson Carr

  Rampole looked across the room at the side directly opposite the window. In that wall was a great stone fireplace, flanked also by shelves and busts. Above the fireplace, two fencing - foils hung crossed behind a blazoned shield of arms which Rampole did not (then) examine. Only on that side of the room had furniture been disarranged. Just before the fire, a long brown - leather sofa had been knocked awry, and a leather chair rolled back in a twisted - up hearth - rug. There was blood on the sofa.

  And finally, towards the rear wall of the room facing the door, Rampole saw the painting. Between the bookshelves in this wall there was a vast cleared space where cases had recently been removed; removed within the last few days, for the marks of their bases were still indented in the carpet. A place on the wall had been made for the painting - which Grimaud would now never hang. The painting itself lay face upwards on the floor not far from where Grimaud himself lay - and it had been slashed across twice with a knife. In its frame it was fully seven feet broad by four feet high: a thing so big that Hadley had to trundle it out and switch it round in the cleared space down the centre of the room before he could prop it up for a look.

  'And that,' said Hadley, propping it against the back of the sofa, 'is the painting he bought to "defend himself" with, is it? Look here, Fell, do you think Grimaud was just as mad as this fellow Fley?'

  Dr Fell, who had been owlishly contemplating the window, lumbered round. 'As Pierre Fley,' he rumbled, and pushed back his shovel - hat, 'who didn't commit the crime. H'm. I say, Hadley, do you see any weapon?'

  'I do not. First there isn't any gun - a high - calibre automatic is what we want - and now there isn't any knife with which this thing was cut to blazes. Look at it! It looks like an ordinary landscape to me.'

  It was not, Rampole thought, exactly ordinary. There was a sort of blowing power about it, as though the artist had painted in a fury and caught in oils the wind that whipped those crooked trees. You felt bleakness and terror. Its motif was sombre, with a greenish tint underlying greys and blacks, except for low white mountains rising in the background. In the foreground, through the branches of a crooked tree, you could see three headstones in rank grass. Somehow it had an atmosphere like this room, subtly foreign, but as hard to identify as a faint odour. The headstones were toppling; in one way you looked at it, there was an illusion that this was because the grave mounds had begun to heave and crack across. Even the slashes did not seem to disfigure it.

  Rampole started a little as he heard a trampling of feet up the staircase in the hall. Boyd Mangan burst in, thinner and more dishevelled than Rampole remembered. Even his black hair, which clung to his head in wirelike scrolls, looked rumpled. He took a quick look at the man on the floor, the heavy brows shading his eyes, and then began to rub a parchment - like cheek. Actually he was about Rampole's age, but the slanting lines drawn under his eyes made him look ten years older.

  'Mills told me,' he said. 'Is he -?' He nodded quickly at Grimaud.

  Hadley ignored this. 'Did you get the ambulance?'

  'Chaps with a stretcher - coming now. The whole neighbourhood's filthy with hospitals, and nobody knew where to telephone. I remembered a friend of the professor's who's got a nursing - home round the corner. They're -' He stood aside to admit two uniformed attendants, and behind them a placid little clean - shaven man with a bald head. 'This is Dr Peterson - er - the police. And that's your - patient.'

  Dr Peterson sucked in his cheek and hurried over. 'Stretcher, boys,' he said, after a brief look. 'I won't dig for it here. Take him easy.' He scowled and stared curiously round as the stretcher was carried out.

  'Any chance?' asked Hadley.

  'He might last a couple of hours; not more, and probably less. If he hadn't had the constitution of a bull he'd be dead already. Looks as though he's made a further lesion in the lung trying to exert himself - torn it across.' Dr Peterson dived into his pocket. 'You'll want to send your police surgeon round, won't you? Here's my card. I'll keep the bullet when I get it. I should guess a thirty - eight bullet, fired from about ten feet off. May I ask what happened?'

  'Murder,' said Hadley. 'Keep a nurse with him, and if he says anything have it taken down word for word.' As the doctor hurried out, Hadley scribbled on a leaf of his note - book and handed it to Mangan. 'Got your head about you? Good. I wish you'd phone the Hunter Street police station with these instructions; they'll get in touch with the Yard. Tell 'em what happened if they ask. Dr Watson is to go to the address of this nursing - home, and the rest are to come on here ... Who's that at the door?'

  The man at the door was the small, thin, top - heavy youth who had been pounding there to begin with. In full light Rampole saw a big goblin - like shock of dark red hair. He saw dull - brown eyes magnified behind thick gold - rimmed glasses, and a bony face sloping outwards to a large and loose mouth. This mouth wriggled with a sonorous precision of utterance, showing wide - spaced teeth with an upward movement of the lip like a fish. The mouth looked flexible from much speaking. Every time he spoke, in fact, he had the appearance of thinly addressing an audience, raising and lowering his head as though from notes, and speaking in a penetrating sing - song towards a point over his listeners' heads. You would have diagnosed a Physics B.Sc. with Socialist platform tendencies, and you would have been right. His clothes were of a reddish - check pattern, and his fingers were laced together before him. His earlier terror had changed to inscrutable calm. He bowed a little, and replied without expression: 'I am Stuart Mills. I am, or was, Dr Grimaud's secretary.' His big eyes moved round. 'May I ask what has happened to the - culprit?'

  'Presumably,' said Hadley, 'he escaped through the window while we were all so sure he couldn't get out. Now, Mr Mills - '

  'Pardon me,' the singsong voice interposed, with a sort of aerial detachment about it. ' He must have been a very extraordinary man if he did that. Have you examined the window?'

  'He's right, Hadley,' said Dr Fell, wheezing heavily. 'Take a look! This business is beginning to worry me. I tell you in all sincerity that, if our man didn't leave here by way of the door - '

  'He did not. I am not,' announced Mills, and smiled, 'the only witness to that. I saw it all from the start to finish.'

  '- then he must have been lighter than air to leave by the window. Open the window and have a look. H'mf, wait! We'd better search the room first.'

  There was nobody hidden in the room. Afterwards, growling under his breath, Hadley eased the window up. Unbroken snow - stretching flat up to the window - frame itself - covered all the wide sill outside. Rampole bent out and looked round.

  There was a bright moon in the west, and every detail stood out sharp as a woodcut. It was a good fifty feet to the ground; the wall fell away in a drop of smooth, wet stone. Just below there was a backyard, like that of all the houses in this row, surrounded by a low wall. The snow lay unbroken in this courtyard, or any other as far as they could look, and along the tops of the walls. Below in the whole side of the house there were no windows whatever. The only windows were on this top floor; and the nearest one to this room was in the hallway to the left, a good thirty feet away. To the right, the nearest window would have been in the adjoining house, an equal distance away. Ahead there lay a vast chessboard of adjoining backyards from houses lining the square, so that the nearest house was several hundred yards away. Finally, there stretched above this window a smooth upward run of stone for some fifteen feet to the roof - whose slope afforded neither hold for the fingers nor for the attaching of a rope.

  But Hadley, craning his neck out, pointed malevolently. 'All the same, that's it,' he declared. 'Look there! Suppose he first hitched a rope to a chimney or something, and had it dangling outside the window when he paid his visit. Then he kills Grimaud, swings out, climbs up over the edge of the roof, crawls up to untie the rope from the chimney, and gets away. There will be plenty of tracks of that, right enough. So -'

  'Yes,' said Mills' voice. 'That is why I must tell you that there aren't any.'<
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  Hadley looked round. Mills had been examining the fire - place, but now he regarded them with his wide - spaced teeth showing in an impassive smile, though his eyes looked nervous and there was sweat on his forehead.

  'You see,' he continued, lifting his hand with the forefinger raised, 'as soon as I perceived that the man in the false face had disappeared -'

  'The what?' said Hadley.

  'The false face. Do I make myself clear?'

  'No. We must see whether we can't extract some sense presently, Mr Mills. In the meantime, what is this business about the roof?'

  'There are no tracks or marks of any nature on it, you see,' the other answered, with a bright expression of his eyes as he opened them wide. This was another trick of his, smiling and staring as though with inspiration, even if it sometimes seemed rather a half - witted inspiration. He raised his forefinger again. 'I repeat, gentlemen, when I saw that the man in the false face had evidently disappeared, I foresaw difficulties for myself -'

  'Why?'

  'Because I myself had this door under observation, and I should have been compelled to asseverate that the man had not come out. Very well. It was therefore deducible that he must have left (a) by way of a rope to the roof, or (b) by means of climbing up inside the chimney to the roof. This was a simple mathematical certainty. If PQ==pq, it is therefore quite obvious that PQ=pq+pb+qa+ab.'

  'Is it indeed?' said Hadley, with restraint. 'Well?'

  'At the end of this hallway which you see - that is to say, which you could see if the door were open,' pursued Mills, with unshakable exactitude, ' I have my workroom. From there a door leads to the attic, and thence to a trap - door opening out on the roof. By raising the trap - door I could see clearly both sides of the roof over this room. The snow was not marked in any fashion.'

  'You didn't go out there?' demanded Hadley.

  'No. I could not have kept my footing if I had. In fact, I do not at the moment see how this could be done even in dry weather.'

  Dr Fell turned a radiant face. He seemed to resist a desire to pick up this phenomenon and dangle him in the air like an ingenious toy.

  'And what then, my boy?' he inquired affably. 'I mean, what did you think when your equation was shot to blazes?'

  Mills remained smiling and inflexibly profound. 'Ah, that remains to be seen. I am a mathematician, sir. I never permit myself to think.' He folded his arms. 'But I wished to call this to your attention, gentlemen, in spite of my firm statement that he did not leave by the door.'

  'Suppose you tell us exactly what did happen here tonight,' urged Hadley, passing a hand across his forehead. He sat down at the desk and took out his note - book. 'Easy, now! We'll lead up to it gradually. How long have you worked for Professor Grimaud?'

  'For three years and eight months,' said Mills, clicking his teeth. Rampole saw that, in the legal atmosphere of the note - book, he was compressing himself to give brief answers.

  'What are your duties?'

  'Partly correspondence and general secretarial duties. In greater ratio to assist him in preparing his new work, The Origin and History of Middle - European Superstitions, Together with -'

  'Quite so. How many people live in this house?'

  'Besides Dr Grimaud and myself, four.'

  'Yes, yes, well?'

  'Ah, I see! You wish their names. Rosette Grimaud, his daughter. Madame Dumont, who is housekeeper. An elderly friend of Dr Grimaud, named Drayman. A general maid whose last name I have never yet been told, but whose first name is Annie.'

  'How many were here to - night when this happened?'

  Mills brought the toe of his shoe forward, balanced himself, and studied it, another trick of his. ' That, obviously, I cannot say with certainty. I will tell you what I know.' He rocked back and forth. 'At the conclusion of dinner, at seven - thirty, Dr Grimaud came up here to work. This is his custom on Saturday evenings. He told me he did not wish to be disturbed until eleven o'clock; that is also the inviolable custom. He said, however' - quite suddenly beads of sweat appeared on the young man's forehead again, though he remained impassive - 'he said, however, that he might have a visitor about half - past nine.'

  'Did he say who this visitor might be?'

  'He did not.'

  Hadley leaned forward. ' Come, now, Mr Mills! Haven't you heard of any threat to him? Didn't you hear what happened on Wednesday evening?'

  'I - er - I had previous information of it, certainly. In fact, I was at the Warwick Tavern myself. I suppose Mangan told you?'

  Uneasily, but with startling vividness, he sketched out the story. Meantime, Dr Fell had stumped away and was going through an examination he several times made that night. He seemed most interested in the fire - place. Since Rampole had already heard an outline of the tavern incident he did not listen to Mills; he watched Dr Fell. The doctor inspected the blood - stains splashing the top and right arm of the disarranged sofa. There were more bloodstains on the hearth, though they were difficult to follow against the black carpet. A struggle there? Yet, Rampole saw, the fire - irons were upright in their rack, in such a position that a struggle before the hearth must have sent them clattering. A very small coal fire had been nearly smothered under a drift of charred papers.

  Dr Fell was muttering to himself. He reared up to examine the escutcheon. To Rampole, no student of heraldry, this presented itself as a divided shield in red and blue and silver: a black eagle and crescent moon in the upper part, and in the lower a wedge of what looked like rooks on a chess - board. Though its colours were darkened, it glowed with barbaric richness in a queerly barbaric room. Dr Fell grunted.

  But he did not speak until he began to examine the books in the shelves at the left of the fire - place. After the fashion of bibliophils, he pounced. Then he began to yank out book after book, glance at the title - page, and shoot it back in again. Also, he seemed to have pounced on the most disreputable - looking volumes in the shelves. He was raising some dust, and making so much noise that it jarred across Mills's recital. Then he rose up and waved books at them in excited intentness.

  'I say, Hadley, I don't want to interrupt, but this is very rummy and very revealing. Gabriel Dobrentei, Yorick es Eliza levelei, two volumes. Shakspere Minden Munkdi, nine volumes in different editions. And here's a name -' He stopped. 'H'mf. Ha. Do you know anything about these, Mr Mills? They're the only books in the lot that haven't been dusted.'

  Mills was startled out of his recital. 'I - I don't know. I believe they are from a batch that Dr Grimaud meant for the attic. Mr Drayman found them put away behind others when we removed some bookcases from the room last night to make room for the painting to be hung ... Where was I, Mr Hadley? Ah, yes! Well, when Dr Grimaud told me that he might have a visitor to - night, I had no reason to assume it was the man of the Warwick Tavern. He did not say so.'

  'What, exactly, did he say?'

  'I - you see, after dinner I was working in the big library downstairs. He suggested that I should come upstairs to my workroom at half - past nine, sit with my door open and - and "keep an eye on" this room, in case -'

  'In case?'

  Mills cleared his throat. 'He was not specific.'

  'He told you all this,' snapped Hadley, 'and you still did not suspect who might be coming?'

  'I think,' interposed Dr Fell, wheezing gently, 'that I may be able to explain what our young friend means. It must have been rather a struggle. He means that in spite of the sternest convictions of the youngest B.Sc., in spite of the stoutest buckler emblazoned with x squared plus 2xy+y squared, he still had enough imagination to get the wind up over that scene at the Warwick Tavern. And he didn't want to know any more than it was his duty to know. Is that it, hey?'

  'I do not admit it, sir,' Mills returned with relief, nevertheless. ' My motives have nothing to do with the facts. You observe that I carried out my orders exactly. I came up here at precisely half - past nine -'

  'Where were the others then? Steady now!' urged Hadley. 'Don't say you
can't reply with certainty; just tell us where you think they were.'

  'To the best of my knowledge, Miss Rosette Grimaud and Mangan were in the drawing - room playing cards. Drayman had told me that he was going out; I did not see him.'

  'And Madame Dumont?'

  'I met her as I came up here. She was corning out with Dr Grimaud's after - dinner coffee; that is to say, with the remnants of it... I went to my workroom, left my door open, and drew out the typewriter desk so that I could face the hallway while I worked. At exactly' - he shut his eyes, and opened them again - 'at exactly fifteen minutes to ten I heard the front - door bell ring. The electric bell is on the second floor and I heard it plainly.