The Hollow Man

by John Dickson Carr

  'I know. You're going to ask me what I think of all this. About my father - and all.' She stared at the ceiling. 'I don't know. It takes such a load off my mind, it's so much too good to be true, that I'm afraid somebody's not telling the truth. Why, I'd have admired the old boy for a thing like that! It's - it's awful and terrible, and I'm glad he had so much of the devil in him. Of course, if he was because he was a thief - she smiled in some pleasure at the idea - 'you can't blame him for keeping it quiet, can you?'

  'That was not what I was going to ask,' said Hadley, who seemed a good deal taken aback by this frankly broad - minded attitude. 'I do want to know why, if you always refused to come over here with Mr Burnaby, you suddenly decided on coming this morning?'

  "To have it out with him, of course. And I - I wanted to get drunk or something. Then things were so unpleasant, you see, when we found that coat with the blood on it hanging in the closet...'

  She stopped as she saw faces change, and jerked back a little.

  "When you found what?' said Hadley, in the midst of a heavy silence.

  'The coat with blood inside it, all stained down the inside of the front,' she answered, with something of a gulp. 'I - er - I didn't mention it, did I? Well, you didn't give me any chance! The minute we walked in here, you leaped out at us like - like - Yes, that's it! The coat was hanging up in the coat-closet in the hall. Jerome found it when he was hanging up his own.'

  'Whose coat?'

  'Nobody's! That's the odd part! I never saw it before. It wouldn't have fitted anybody at our house. It was too big for father - and it's a flashy tweed overcoat of the kind he'd have shuddered at, anyway; it would have swallowed Stuart Mills, and yet it isn't big enough for old Drayman. It's a new coat. It looks as though it had never been worn before...'

  'I see,' said Dr Fell, and puffed out his cheeks.

  'You see what?' snapped Hadley. 'This is a fine state of affairs now! You told Pettis you wanted blood. Well, you're getting blood - too infernally much blood! - and all in the wrong places. What's on your mind now?'

  'I see,' replied Dr Fell, pointing with his stick, 'where Drayman got the blood on him last night.'

  'You mean he wore the coat?'

  'No, no! Think back. Remember what your sergeant said. He said that Drayman, half blind, came blundering and rushing downstairs; blundered round in the clothes - closet getting his hat and coat. Hadley, he brushed close up against that coat when the blood was fresh. And it's no wonder he couldn't understand afterwards how it got there. Doesn't that clear up a good deal?'

  'No, I'm damned if it does! It clears up one point by substituting another twice as bad. An extra coat! Come along. We're going over there at once. If you will go with us, Miss Grimaud, and you, Mr -'

  Dr Fell shook his head. 'You go along, Hadley. There's something I must see now. Something that changes the whole twist of the case; something that has become the most vitally important thing in it.'

  'What?'

  'Pierre Fley's lodgings,' said Dr Fell, and shouldered out with his cape whirling behind him.

  THIRD COFFIN

  The Problem of Seven Towers

  CHAPTER 16

  THE CHAMELEON OVERCOAT

  BETWEEN that discovery and the time they were to meet Pettis for lunch, Dr Fell's spirits sank to a depth of gloom Rampole would not have believed possible and which he certainly could not understand.

  To begin with, the doctor refused to go straight back to Russell Square with Hadley, although he insisted Hadley should go. He said the essential clue must be at Fley's room. He said he would keep Rampole behind for some 'dirty work of a strenuous pattern'. Finally, he swore at himself with such heartfelt violence that even Hadley, sometimes sharing the views he expressed, was moved to remonstrate.

  'But what do you expect to find there?' insisted Hadley. 'Somers has already been through the place!'

  'I don't expect anything. I can only say I hope,' grumbled the doctor, 'to find certain traces of brother Henri. His trade - mark, so to speak. His whiskers. His - oh, my hat, brother Henri, damn you!'

  Hadley said that they could forgo the Soliloquy in a Spanish Cloister, and could not understand why his friend's rage at the elusive Henri seemed to have grown to the status of a mania. There appeared nothing fresh to inspire it. Besides, the doctor, before leaving Burnaby's lodging - house, held up everybody for some time with a searching examination of Miss Hake, the landlady. O'Rourke had been gallantly keeping her downstairs with reminiscences of his trouping days; but both of them were tall talkers, and it is to be doubted whether he reminisced any more than Miss Hake did.

  The questioning of Miss Hake, Dr Fell admitted, was not productive. Miss Hake was a faded, agreeable spinster with good intentions but somewhat wandering wits, and a tendency to confuse erratic lodgers with burglars or murderers.

  When she was at last persuaded out of her belief that Burnaby was a burglar, she could give little information. She had not been home last night. She had been at the moving - pictures from eight o'clock until eleven, and at a friend's house in Gray's Inn Road until nearly midnight. She could not tell who might have used Burnaby's room; she had not even known of the murder until that morning. As to her other lodgers, there were three: an American student and his wife on the ground floor, and a veterinary surgeon on the floor above. All three had been out on the night before.

  Somers, who had returned from his futile errand to Bloomsbury Square, was put to work on this lead; Hadley set out for Grimaud's house with Rosette and Burnaby, and Dr Fell, who was doggedly intent on tackling another communicative landlady, found instead an uncommunicative landlord.

  The premises over and under the tobacconist's shop at number 2 looked as flimsy as one of those half - houses which stand out from the side of the stage in a musical comedy. But they were bleak, dark - painted, and filled with mustiness of the shop itself. Energy at a clanking bell at last brought James Dolberman, tobacconist and news - agent, materializing slowly from the shadows at the back of his shop. He was a small, tight - lipped old man with large knuckles and a black muslin coat that shone like armour in a cave of fly - blown novelettes and mummified peppermints. His view of the whole matter was that it was no business of his.

  Staring past them at the shop window, as though he were waiting for someone to come and give him an excuse to leave off talking, he bit off a few grudging answers. Yes, he had a lodger; yes, it was a man named Fley - a foreigner. Fley occupied a bed - sitting - room on the top floor. He had been there two weeks, paying in advance. No, the landlord didn't know anything about him, and didn't want to, except that he gave no trouble. He had a habit of talking to himself in a foreign language, that was all. The landlord didn't know anything about him, because he hardly ever saw him. There were no other lodgers; he (James Dolberman) wasn't carrying hot water upstairs for anybody. Why did Fley choose the top floor? How should he know? They had better ask Fley.

  Didn't he know Fley was dead? Yes, he did; there had been a policeman here asking fool questions already, and taking him to identify the body. But it wasn't any business of his. What about the shooting at twenty - five minutes past ten last night? James Dolberman looked as though he might say something, but snapped his jaws shut and stared even harder at the window. He had been below - stairs in his kitchen with the radio on; he knew nothing about it, and wouldn't have come out to see if he had.

  Had Fley ever had any visitors? No. Were there ever any suspicios - looking strangers, any people associated with Fley, hereabouts?

  This had an unexpected result: the landlord's jaws still moved in a somnambulistic way, but he grew almost voluble. Yes, there was something the police ought to see to, instead of wasting taxpayer's money! He had seen somebody dodging round this place, watching it, once even speaking to Fley and then darting up the street. Nasty - looking customer. Criminal most likely! He didn't like people who dodged. No, he couldn't give any description of him - that was the police's business. Besides, it was always at night.
>
  'But isn't there anything,' said Dr Fell, who was nearly at the limit of his affability and was wiping his face with the bandana, 'you can give as description? Any clothes, any - thing of that sort? Hey?'

  'He might,' Dolberman conceded, after a tight - lipped struggle with the window, 'he might have been wearing a kind of fancy overcoat, or the like. Of a light yellow tweed; with red spots in it, maybe. That's your business. You wish to go upstairs? Here is the key. The door is outside.'

  As they were stamping up a dark and narrow stairway, through a house surprisingly solid despite its flimsy appearance, Rampole fumed.

  'You're right, sir,' he said, 'in saying that the whole case has been turned upside down. It has been - on a matter of overcoats - and it makes less sense than anything else. We've been looking for the sinister figure in the long black overcoat. And now along comes another figure in a bloodstained tweed coat that you can at least call gay in colour. Which is which, and does the whole business turn on a matter of overcoats?'

  Dr Fell puffed as he hauled himself up. 'Well, I wasn't thinking of that,' he said, doubtfully, 'when I said that the case had been turned upside down - or perhaps I should say wrong way round. But in a way it may depend on overcoats. H'm. The Man with Two Overcoats. Yes, I think it's the same murderer, even if he doesn't happen to be sartorially consistent.'

  'You said you had an idea as to who the murderer might be?'

  'I know who he is!' roared Dr Fell. 'And do you know why I feel an urge to kick myself? Not only because he's been right under my nose all the time, but because he's been practically telling me the truth the whole time, and yet I've never had the sense to see it. He's been so truthful that it hurts me to think of how I disbelieved him and thought he was innocent!'

  'But the vanishing - trick?'

  'No, I don't know how it was done. Here we are.' There was only one room on the top floor, to which a grimy skylight admitted a faint glow on the landing. The room had a door of plain boards painted green; it stood ajar, and opened on a low cave of a room whose window had evidently not been opened in some time. After fumbling round in the gloom, Dr Fell found a gas - mantle in a tipsy globe. The ragged light showed a neat, but very grimy, room with blue cabbages on the wall - paper and a white iron bed. On the bureau lay a folded note under a bottle of ink. Only one touch remained of Pierre Fley's weird and twisted brain: it was as though they saw Fley himself, in his rusty evening clothes and top - hat, standing by the bureau for a performance. Over the mirror hung framed an old - fashioned motto in curly script of gilt and black and red. The spidery scrollwork read, 'Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord; I will Repay.' But it was hung upside down.

  Wheezing in the quiet, Dr Fell lumbered over to the bureau and picked up the folded note. The handwriting was flowery, Rampole saw, and the short message had almost the air of a proclamation.

  'James Dolberman, Esq.

  'I am leaving you my few belongings, such as they are; in lieu of a week's notice. I shall not need them again. I am going back to my grave.

  'PIERRE FLEY'

  'Why,' said Rampole, 'this insistent harping on "I am going back to my grave"? It sounds as though it ought to have a meaning, even if it doesn't ... I suppose there really was such a person as Fley? He existed; he wasn't somebody else pretending to be Fley, or the like?'

  Dr Fell did not answer that. He was at the beginning of a mood of gloom which sank lower and lower as he inspected the tattered grey carpet on the floor.

  'Not a trace,' he groaned. 'Not a trace or a bus ticket or anything. Serene and unswept and traceless. His possessions? No, I don't want to see his possessions. I suppose Somers had a look through those. Come on; we'll go back and join Hadley.'

  They walked to Russell Square through a gloom of mind as well as overcast sky. As they went up the steps, Hadley saw them through the drawing - room window and came to open the front door. Making sure the drawing - room door was closed - there was a mutter of voices beyond - Hadley faced them in the dimness of the ornate hallway. Behind him the devil mask on the suit of Japanese armour gave a fair caricature of his face.

  'More trouble, I perceive,' said Dr Fell, almost genially. 'Well, out with it. I have nothing to report. I was afraid my expedition would be a failure, but I have no consolation merely from being a good prophet. What's up?'

  'That overcoat - ' Hadley stopped. He was in such a state that wrath could go no farther; he touched the other side, and ended with a sour grin. 'Come in and listen to it. Fell. Maybe it'll make sense to you. If Mangan is lying, I don't see any good reason why he should be lying. But that overcoat - we've got it right enough - A new coat, brand new. Nothing in the pockets, not even the usual grit and fluff and tobacco ash that you get when you've worn a coat a little while. But first we were faced with the problem of two overcoats. Now we have what you would probably call the Mystery of the Chameleon Overcoat...'

  'What's the matter with the overcoat?'

  'It's changed colour,' said Hadley.

  Dr Fell blinked. He examined the superintendent with an air of refreshed interest. 'I don't imagine by any chance,' he said, 'that this business has turned your brain, has it? Changed colour, hey? Are you about to tell me that the overcoat is now a bright emerald green?'

  'I mean it's changed colour since - Come on!' Tension was thick in the air when he threw, open the door of a drawing - room furnished in heavy old - fashioned luxury, with bronze groups holding lights, gilt cornices, and curtains stiff with such an overdose of lace that they looked like frozen waterfalls. All the lights were on. Burnaby lounged on a sofa. Rosette was walking about with quick, angry steps. In the corner by the radio stood Ernestine Dumont, her hands on her hips and her lower lip folded across the upper, amused, or satiric, or both. Finally, Boyd Mangan stood with his back to the fire, hopping a little and moving from one side to the other as though it burnt him. But it was excitement, or something else, that burnt him.

  '- I know the damn thing fits me!' he was saying, with an air of fierce repetition. 'I know it. I admit it. The overcoat fits me, but it's not my coat. In the first place, I always wear a waterproof; it's hanging up in the hall now. In the second place I could never afford a coat like that; the thing must have cost twenty guineas if it cost a penny. In the third place - '

  Hadley figuratively rapped for attention. The entrance of Dr Fell and Rampole seemed to soothe Mangan.

  'Would you mind repeating,' said Hadley, 'what you've just been telling us?'

  Mangan lit a cigarette. The match - flame gleamed in dark eyes that were a little bloodshot. He twitched out the match, inhaled, and expelled smoke with the air of one who is determined to be convicted in a good cause.

  'Personally, I don't see why everybody should want to jump all over me,' he said. 'It may have been another overcoat, although I don't see why anybody should want to strew his wardrobe all over the place ... Look here, Ted, I'll put it up to you.' He seized Rampole's arm and dragged him over in front of the fire as though he were setting up an exhibit. 'When I got here for dinner last night, I went to hang up my coat - my waterproof, mind you - in the clothes - closet in the hall. Generally, you don't bother to turn on the light in there. You just grope round and stick your coat on the first convenient hook. I wouldn't have bothered then, but I was carrying a parcel of books I wanted to put on the shelf. So I switched on the light. And I saw an overcoat, an extra coat, hanging by itself over in the far corner. It was about the same size as the yellow tweed one you've got; just the same, I should have said, only it was black.'

  'An extra coat,' repeated Dr Fell. He drew in his chins and looked curiously at Mangan. 'Why do you say an extra coat, my boy? If you see a line of coats in somebody's house, does the idea of an extra one ever enter your head? My experience is that the least noticed things in a house are coats hanging on a peg; you have a vague idea that one of 'em must be your own, but you're not even sure which it is. Eh?"

  'I knew the coats people have here, all the same. And,' replied Mangan
, 'I particularly noticed this one, because I thought it must be Burnaby's. They hadn't told me he was here, and I wondered if he was ...'

  Burnaby had adopted a very bluff, indulgent air towards Mangan. He was not now the thin - skinned figure they had seen sitting on the divan in Cagliostro Street; he was an elder chiding youth with a theatrical wave of his hand.

  'Mangan,' he said, 'is very observant, Dr Fell. A very observant young man. Ha - ha - ha! Especially where I am concerned.'

  'Got any objections?' asked Mangan, lowering his voice to a calm note.

  '- But let him tell you the story. Rosette, my dear, may I offer you a cigarette? By the way, I may say that it wasn't my coat.'

  Mangan's anger grew without his seeming to know exactly why. But he turned back to Dr Fell. 'Anyway, I noticed it. Then, when Burnaby came here this morning and found that coat with the blood inside it - well, the light one - was hanging in the same place. Of course, the only explanation is that there were two overcoats. But what kind of crazy business is it? I'll swear that coat last night didn't belong to anybody here. You can see for yourself that the tweed one doesn't. Did the murderer wear one coat, or both, or neither? Besides, that black coat had a queer look about it -'