by T. H. White
From that moment he became insane. Fortunately he had no matches or he would have struck one to make sure. He felt her face with trembling fingers, like a blind man reading in Braille, straining his mind to recollect her profile as it would appear to the sense of touch. He convinced himself that it was she.
He felt and kissed her cold hands, whispering in her ear an incoherent message of encouragement.
Then bumping his head sharply against the ceiling of the shaft, he turned over on hands and knees and crawled for the main chimney.
He grinned in the darkness with savage triumph and determination. He was ready and bursting to pay off all scores with Mauleverer in a single blow. He drew his revolver and crawled with it in his right hand, cocking it as he went. The hammer came back with a vicious snap which spilled the darkness. He reached the main shaft and stretched out his left hand, feeling against the wall for a purchase.
His hand fell on warm cotton, which moved. He swung his revolver round as a strange hand fell on his shoulder, tilting him forward into the well of the chimney.
The life preserver wrapped itself round the base of his skull with an almost silent thud, and he felt himself pitching forward into the tunnel of night.
*****
Mauleverer caught him as he lurched on the brink, and thrust him back into the hole. From far below came the clatter of the revolver, as it struck the fender of the dining-room.
The startled house resumed its silence instantly, like a surprised guest who has laughed at the wrong joke, and Mauleverer began to move with the unseen agility of a spider.
He had been propped sideways in the chimney, supporting his weight between legs and back, waiting for Buller to emerge. Now he quickly scrambled round and sidled feet first into the same flue which contained the two bodies. But he slipped out again in a moment, and made a quick upward journey, to return almost at once. The journey was repeated and followed by another in the opposite direction, downwards, to the dining-room fireplace.
In these hurried activities, more than ever in the darkness, he was the gloating and eager spider: running to and fro along its web, strengthening the meshes, binding in a gleeful haste the captured trophies in an increasing filament.
As he slid into the sloping flue again for the last time, the darkness of Pemberley was animated by a trilling chuckle.
CHAPTER XIX
Buller's head felt as if it would cave inwards under the tight hoop of pain which banded it. He opened his eyes in the darkness, wondering if he were dead, and smelt the stink of soot without reflecting on the corollary of hell fire. He moved his shoulders experimentally and grunted as the pang stabbed at his skull.
He could do no more than grunt, he discovered, for a gag drew the flesh of his cheeks cruelly backwards. He could do no more than move his shoulders, for his feet were bound together with the ankles crossed; and his hands were tied behind him. His fingers throbbed and his toes ached, but the pain in his head was enough to make him sick.
At his second groan a soft voice fanned the darkness by his ear. It was a low voice, modulated to an exaggerated music.
"Inspector Buller," it said, "my dear Inspector Buller. Are you conscious, are you in great pain?"
It paused for an answer, and then:
"But of course you can't speak. That cruel gag. I must really, really apologise for all this suffering. Really, it is against my nature. I suffer for you, Inspector Buller, I assure you I do. But you thrust it upon me. How can I loose you when you carry a revolver to take my life? How can I ungag you when you would so impetuously seek to rouse the household with a yell?"
The question was rhetorical.
"That blow on the head," the voice trickled on, "it cost me a pang to give it. I'm sure your head must ache so dreadfully. And yet it was calculated with such anxiety. I said to myself: If I strike too hard I may crack the skull, I may preclude for an eternal future all possibility of conversation with my dear friend Inspector Buller. And yet, I said, perhaps—and I do so beg of you to excuse the indelicacy of the remark—perhaps the Inspector's skull is thick. Perhaps the Inspector—but of course I was only joking—is a bonehead. I must be sure to strike him hard enough to be certain of insensibility. You do see my dilemma, I feel so sure? Yours is a forgiving and honest nature which will overlook an action, a distasteful action, thrust upon me by the hard necessity of circumstance?"
"But I trifle," added the douce voice, "I plague you with questions which I know you cannot answer. Forgive my importunity."
There was a faint sigh in the darkness, and the voice ran on conversationally:
"I have been looking forward to this quiet chat, Inspector, for a variety of reasons. Hearing you talk over my affairs, in the various rooms of this fine house, so often lately, I have longed to correct your theories: to put in that word of explanation which will so clear them up, so relate them to one another in a connected whole. My attachment to you, Inspector, has been one of which I daresay you would never have dreamed. We murderers have our pride. Fame for us must be anonymous—such are the sad rules of society—and yet we seek our fame. You are the only living being who has been permitted to follow my whole career. I had hoped to treasure you as a sort of live repository for my successes. Then, when I felt lonely in my achievements, when the necessary neglect of my trophies by the wide world weighed upon me, I could think to myself that one man at least was following my career and appreciating my triumphs. It was vain of me, I know, but that was my desire."
Mauleverer sighed again.
"I had hoped for a living chronicler, a sort of inverted Dr. Watson who could never prove anything against me and who would be actionable for libel if he tried. And now circumstances have combined against me—at least so it seems, at least so I fear—and my living repository must become a mausoleum. This is a sad setback to all my hopes. I shall have to seek a new disciple and begin all over again. Perhaps Dr. Wilder would be eligible."
He considered this idea for some time in silence.
"In the meantime," he continued, "I owe it to you that the whole of my tactics up to the present should be explained. I can at least satisfy myself in this. I can be sure that you understand everything that has happened so far. I shall pour into your brain the full realisation of every situation up to the present moment, and then, with the casket full, the safe, I might say, stocked to the last shelf, I insert my little key and lock it. I lose the combination and leave the treasure house, full, perfected, and never to be ransacked. I often think that even the dead brain, like a gramophone record without the machine to play it, retains its impressions in an eternal secrecy."
Buller moved restlessly, conveying to the maniac's mind some feeling of contempt by this fettered shrug.
Mauleverer continued briskly: "Come now, Mr. Buller, you have always been rude to me. Now you must really consent to pay attention. I cannot be responsible for your death unless you are a perfect record. Besides, you ought to be interested."
The voice became angry.
"You have bungled your affairs sufficiently, I should hope, to be interested in the real course of events. Don't you think you have danced on my strings long enough to wish to know how they were pulled? Now listen to my story.
"When that young fool the baronet downstairs first came to call on me I was annoyed. I decided to kill him at once in some manner which could be attributed to the act of God. Naturally I thought at once of tiles, and tiles mean roofs and roofs are best approached by chimneys. I looked up Pemberley in a guide to Derbyshire, and was delighted to find, I must admit by a stroke of luck, that the chimneys here were highly suitable. I set about providing myself with an outfit suitable for chimneys. Black, of course, so that one would not be noticeable at night. And then the other adjuncts. People who move about in chimneys are liable to be dirty, and dirty people leave traces. I brought with me, to counteract this tendency as much as possible, a plain oil-cloth cover such as is used to protect tennis racquets from the damp. In this receptacle I packed a
clean white pair of gloves, white so that I could see at once when, where, and if they began to be dirty; a change of light rubber-soled shoes; a soft clothes-brush; and certain chemical accessories. Whenever I left a chimney for a room I used to brush myself in the grate (I was doing that when I sat for some time in the kitchen grate between your friends Wilder and the chauffeur: the soft brush was fortunately quite silent), change my shoes and don my gloves. I was further assisted in my efforts at cleanliness by the lucky circumstances that our hostess here had caused the chimneys to be swept in her spring cleaning before you arrived. So much for the oddities of my costume, which I also made as athletic as possible so that I might have freedom of movement. I only brought two other things: a rope and a gas mask. Let us pause a moment on the latter. You tried, my dear Inspector, two days ago, to rid yourself of the brooding genius of Pemberley by using gas. Cudgel your brains for a moment and consider whether this was logical. In me I believe you recognised a person of some small intelligence, and you believed that I had taken up residence in your chimneys. Has it occurred to you that chimneys are sometimes, I might even say frequently, connected with smoke? With the fumes of coal gas at least, and, if coke is used, possibly of carbon monoxide? Would it not have seemed likely to you, if you had given the matter that penetrating consideration which has always so distinguished your activities, that a wise person who came to establish himself in a chimney might bring a gas mask? Your gas attack was futile from the start. I had not fled the house or hidden in an air-locked secret chamber. It may interest you to know that I slept through it, on this very ledge. I have been short of sleep in the past few days, and the gas was an admirable opportunity. It ensured that I should not be disturbed, since you all had to keep outside the house."
Mauleverer rested for a moment.
"I don't claim," he went on, "to have outwitted you by forecasting your use of gas in advance. For one thing I hoped you would never realise I was in the chimneys. But I do think that you might have given me credit for the sense to bring a gas mask, simply against the chimney fumes. But I must go on with my story. I arrived here, fully equipped, on the night of Sir Charles's visit to Cambridge. This was quick work, for I had been forced to motor to Wales that day, before I came back. I arrived in the early hours of the morning, left my ordinary clothes in a neat bundle in a culvert outside the grounds, and found no difficulty in effecting an entrance through the postern door into the old smoking-room. I brought my ropes and arranged a neat system of rapid communication down all four of the main stacks. Next morning, as you know, I made my way to the stable roof in a heavy storm of rain (which, I hope, washed away any small traces of soot that I may have left) and dropped my tile. I missed him, but it was not a bad shot when you reflect on the difficulty of sighting when the mark is hidden by a gutter and moving as well. Then, later in the day, I had the pleasure of listening to your forecast of my probable methods of execution. That forecast, as Dr. Wilder so penetratingly remarked, put me on my mettle and made me decide to adopt none of the methods which you had mentioned. I decided on a little preparatory amusement and indulged myself with those little jokes of the toothbrush, the lipstick and the skull. Over the last I was unfortunate. You must realise by now, Inspector, that I am not a lucky man. Remember those fingerprints on the tone-arm and the coincidence of that young puppy at the window in Copper Street. Trials are sent to me so that I may triumph over them. In this case the unlucky chance was the light sleeping of Mrs. Bossom. She woke at the very moment that I touched her bed with the skull, and I only had time to nip up the chimney before she was yelling the house down. I had no time to open the door. You will remember that in each case, prior to that, I had been careful to leave some entry open so that you would not be forced to conclude that I had entered from the chimney. But now, by ill luck, I had positively forced the chimneys on your attention.
"The next night you attempted to trap me at my drink, and I was compelled, so much against my will, to give you a warning lesson. I was by no means daunted, as you will by now have realised, although the discovery of my line of communications, forced on you by the accident of the cook, made you think to keep up a fire in Sir Charles's room. I could have reached him fairly easily before, when I was in playful mood, but now it was impossible without strategy.
"On the next day you tried your amusing gas attack. Although this made no difference whatever, in itself, I was quick to realise that you would institute a thorough search of the chimneys, to find the supposed body, as soon as it was light enough next day. I could easily have slipped away from this search, for you lacked the numbers to guard all the bolt-holes, but it would have meant taking down my ropes (they were attached by hooks, I may mention) and much inconvenience. If I had fled it would have given me all the trouble of coming back again, and then by no means with the certainty that Sir Charles's room would be without a fire.
"And so, my dear Inspector, I had recourse to a little experiment in psychology. I reckoned that you would expect me to be gassed or gone, and it turned out that I had reckoned rightly. The sweet Miss Darcy, here, had omitted to light her fire. It was a warm night—rosy cheeked spring, you know, is here—and I suppose she was feeling stuffy. I had no difficulty in entering her room and treating her with an innocuous drug. You will have noticed that she lies limp and apparently unconscious. But she is not unconscious. She is enjoying our conversation just as much as you are. My little drug is a first cousin to stovaine, and much more easy to administer since it can be injected into the blood-stream instead of into the spinal fluid. Its effect is to paralyse the higher centres of conscious motion. Miss Darcy is at present suffering from total paralysis, although she is perfectly conscious."
At this point Buller blushed deeply at an unfortunate recollection. Mauleverer was running on without a pause.
"When Miss Darcy was quite relaxed I managed to get her up the chimney to this ledge, though with great difficulty, by means of ropes. I then made my way to the garage, after picking up my outdoor clothes, and took the liberty of borrowing Sir Charles's Bentley. I had no qualms about leaving Miss Darcy, for the drug is potent for ten or twelve hours. I need not go into details of the chase. I believe that it will have dawned on you by now that had I chosen to I could have shaken you off in the first ten miles. And yet I led you as far as the Black Mountains before I found it necessary to lose you. I may say that I had the greatest difficulty in keeping you on my track. At Worcester particularly, when the Daimler went off to Tewkesbury and you were careering about further east than ever, I thought you would never catch up again. I had to leave a very definite clue at that garage. However, all's well that ends well (excuse the proverb), and I managed to get you all beyond Longtown.
"I wonder if you have any inkling of my motives? First of all, and most important, I had to take you away from Pemberley before you instituted the search for my asphyxiated body. Secondly, I needed one more night (to-night) in which to finish off the baronet. Thirdly, though this is a minor point, I had a little shopping to do and an alibi to tend. Why, you will ask, did I take the trouble to lead you all the way to Pandy? The answer is simple. I wanted to waste your day. I did not want you to go back and start prying about the house. I was afraid that you might start looking for Miss Darcy (I fear I over-estimated your intelligence) if you had a whole day of idleness before you. But that was not my main reason. You will realise that I had to re-enter Pemberley, and for that reason I preferred that you should not be here. Now it was essential to me that I should reach a certain spot in Wales—I'll explain why later—and get back before you. So, remembering that delightful stretch of road between Longtown and Hay (which was close to my destination), I took you with me and marooned you when we were nearly there. I executed my business and was back long before you. The Bentley is in a garage at Hay. I came back by train and taxi, and got in whilst the servants were having dinner.
"Now think it over. Before I started this wild goose chase I was up a chimney which you would search in a few
hours. After I had finished it certain benefits had accrued. To begin with, you knew that I was alive and thought that I had abducted Miss Darcy to Wales. So you would be unlikely to search the chimney. But there were other benefits. I had laid in another dose of Miss Darcy's little drug (my shopping) and I had paid a visit to Dreavour (where my alibi lives). Also I had got back whilst you were still pulling nails out of your tyres. And the last benefit of all (this was where my incursion into the realms of psychology justified itself): the defence was disorganised. You thought I was well away, or at least Sir Charles did, and there was no fire in his room to-night.
"But about that alibi—my reason for wanting to visit Wales. It's a poor alibi, but then it's difficult to prove that one's in a different place for days at a stretch. I'm ashamed of that alibi, and yet it was the best I could do in a hurry. I told you that I had to visit Wales on the day I first came here. I drove to Dreavour with my humble Morris Oxford, and a tent, which I erected. I took with me a supply of empty condensed milk tins (I had emptied the condensed milk down the sink in my gyp room) and other open tins of salmon, meat, fruit, etc., the contents of which I threw out of the car on my way.
"Dreavour is a lonely place, where one can camp for days without seeing a soul. But one's tent would be noticed. At a pinch people would be ready to presume that one had been staying there, what with all this hiking. Colour might be added to the story by the empty tins of provisions. It was a poor alibi, but at any rate it was a possible one. It was better than not being able to explain where one had been at all. And it would be considerably strengthened if one could be seen in the village the day before the murder—just at the time when one was supposed to be hiding in the chimneys here. You see; I was seen to arrive and I wanted to be seen once in the interim. Hence my trip to Wales, to buy eggs from the nearest farm house.
