Deadly Hall

by John Dickson Carr

  “But I do mean it. Why should I not mean it?”

  “Because it’s impossible! I don’t need money; I don’t want money; certainly not that money! This won’t do!”

  “I was right, was I not, to anticipate some slight objection? But yours, my boy, is not a real objection. Will you excuse me for just one moment?”

  Revisiting his office on the plea that he had left something there, carrying the buff folder with him, Jeff’s host was gone for so long a time that the visitor considered taking down one of the law-books from the shelves. But their formidable appearance defeated him. Ira returned to find him still in mental chaos.

  “Mr. Rutledge,” he said, “what do you know about Horace Dinsmore? Beyond the fact that he’s a clergyman whom Dave describes as very pious and sour-faced …”

  “Let’s be accurate, shall we? His piety I have no reason to question. To call the gentleman sour-faced would be unjustified and might even be actionable; I have never seen him. Neither has Dave. No doubt it occurred to Dave, after the fashion of youth, that any Boston clergyman must answer some such description.”

  “But—”

  “Again let’s be accurate, if you don’t mind. Though an ordained minister of the Congregational Church, Dr. Dinsmore has held no pastorate subsequent to his original one in upstate Massachusetts. He is now professor of religious instruction at Mansfield College, Boston. He went up the usual academic ladder, but they think so well of him that he went up swiftly; in 1919 he became a full professor. What’s troubling you, Jeff?”

  “Well! As regards Dave and Serena, is there some suggestion that I, I of all people, might want to hasten their departure?”

  “Hasten their departure? My dear boy,” cried the lawyer, clearly taken aback, “so grotesque a fantasy never entered my head! Why should it enter yours?”

  “Because there’s been so much loose talk about fatalities that weren’t accidents.”

  “At least, Jeff, you have the good judgment to recognize it as loose talk. Suspect you of evil designs? Nonsense! Nor, since we are on the subject, must we look askance at a middle-aged parson of quiet tastes, especially one already so wealthy in his own right (I have investigated Dr. Dinsmore with care) that he would scarcely be tempted by a depleted estate like—”

  It was Ira’s turn to stop dead.

  “Is it a depleted estate, Mr. Rutledge? Forgive me, but is it a depleted estate? Serena and Dave swear to the contrary; it seems to me they protest too much and too often. And Penny Lynn quotes her father about Harald Hobart’s losses. If I’m not entitled to know …”

  “No, you are not entitled to know. Not yet, at least. Under the circumstances, however, I feel justified in intimating that—”

  Again the lawyer checked himself, but not this time because he had almost made a slip. He held up his hand for silence.

  Traffic noises from the street had dwindled to a murmur. Somewhere inside the building footsteps could be heard ascending stairs and drawing nearer.

  “Andy Stockton,” Ira said, “will have gone off duty. Whoever that may be, at this hour of the night he’s not likely to come here. And I sincerely hope not. The anteroom door is still unlocked!”

  He said this as those same footsteps, approaching in haste, bore down on the offices of Rutledge & Rutledge. The door stood open between law-library and brightly lighted waiting-room. Into the latter room, with an air of storming it, burst a plump, round-bodied man of somewhere past fifty, whose businesslike shell-rimmed glasses made some contrast to his festive green-felt hat with Tyrolean feather.

  Ira Rutledge went out to join him, closing the library door. But Jeff could hear clearly.

  “Remember me, Counsellor?” demanded a voice of carrying tenor. This newcomer in his fifties sounded like a frustrated small boy. “My name is Merriman, Earl G. Merriman of St. Louis. You’re a hard man to catch, seems to me. I phoned your home; they said you were at the office. And I could see lights up here, but the elevator’s not running!”

  Ira spoke with dignity.

  “Since it’s after eleven at night, my good sir, could you expect anything else? To what do I owe the honor of this unexpected visit?”

  “These clients of yours: have they got an answer for me? I’m only here for a coupla days; got to get back home, y’know, and it’d be just jim-dandy if I could have an answer to take back to my wife. Well, what about it?”

  “My clients have promised you their decision, Mr. Merriman, by a date to which you agreed. That date has not yet arrived. Meanwhile, since at the moment I am fully occupied with another client …”

  “I want that place; my wife wants it; I’ve already offered more’n it’s worth to me. There’s a lot of dough tied up in this deal, Counsellor: you can’t sweep it under the rug like dust. But I don’t think you get me; I don’t think we’re talkin’ about the same thing!”

  “What we are discussing should be fairly evident. Your offer to buy Delys Hall …”

  “Didn’t I say we weren’t talkin’ about the same thing? My offer’s there; my offer stands. But it’s come to my ears, one way or another, that maybe somebody else wants to beat me to the deal. I hear it’s some guy with a French name; however they pronounce it, they spell it V-a-u-b-a-n. But his first name’s Bill, which I can pronounce. Well, Counsellor? Has this Bill Vobbin propositioned ’em, and are they givin’ him the inside track?”

  “Already, sir, I have provided you with such information as I have been instructed to give. I am not instructed to volunteer more. And now, if you will excuse me …?”

  But Earl G. Merriman wouldn’t excuse him. For what seemed half an hour he raved, repeating in various ways that after all his trouble and fair dealing it would be the dirtiest, scummiest trick ever played on an honest businessman if some French son-of-a-bitch were allowed the advantage.

  The senior Rutledge listened with exemplary patience, though sounds indicated he was gradually edging his visitor towards the outer door.

  After a final, “Good night, sir,” from Ira, hearing that door whish as it closed on its air-cushion, Jeff opened the library door in time to hear Mr. Merriman stamp towards the stairs at the back of the hall outside, still raving to such an extent that, as he descended, Jeff expected him to bid goodbye by kicking at the banisters in a tantrum.

  Ira turned round.

  “If in fact Mr. Vauban has made any such offer,” he said, “I have not been informed of it. Probably it is only rumor and canard, because—well, never mind.”

  Still with great deliberation, he wandered round the anteroom, as though tidying up what did not need to be tidied, before switching off the lights and joining Jeff in the library, where only its green-shaded lamp burned on the table.

  “Now what were we discussing? Ah, yes: the financial affairs of the Hobarts!”

  The minutes ticked on; Ira sat down.

  “As an interested party, my boy, at least you may be informed that neither Dave nor Serena will be reduced to poverty. Delys Hall is theirs to dispose of as they see fit. My recent colloquy with Mr. Merriman should provide sufficient evidence of that.”

  “Then I was entirely mistaken?”

  “If not entirely mistaken, you jumped to too many conclusions.—It’s a curious thing,” the lawyer added musingly, “that your own uncle should recently have concerned himself with one aspect of Hobart finances. Being himself a lawyer, he asked no question either unethical or injudicious. He did not care, he said, what the family holdings might be at present. But in the past, even the long past, had they ever had a financial interest in state or local industry?”

  “And had they? Could you answer?”

  “Yes, without embarrassment. They held shares in your own family’s Dixieland Tobacco: which, though operating from North Carolina, is controlled here. They owned almost a controlling interest in the Vulcan Ironworks at Shreveport, once the largest in the South after Tredegar at Richmond. Poor Harald himself tried for a controlling interest in Danforth & Co. of Baton Rouge,
and at one time I believe he had it.”

  “This Danforth & Co.: what do they manufacture?”

  Ira drew designs in the air.

  “Fine woodwork of all kinds: panelling, elaborate bookcases, highly skilled reproductions of antique furniture. There are no imitation antiques at Delys Hall, I might say! Even Danforth & Co. could not have made that notable sixteenth-century harpsichord in the drawing-room. If I am not musical, I have a discriminating eye for antiques.”

  “What did Uncle Gil want? What was he really up to?”

  “I can’t say.” Mr. Rutledge, who for some reason had hesitated as he mentioned the harpsichord in the drawing-room, now seemed to wake up. “But all this is hardly to our purpose, is it? These suspicions of yours, Jeff! Dave and Serena, I gather, let you believe they were as financially comfortable as they have always been heretofore. They did not tell you, perhaps, that you yourself would be co-heir should misfortune befall them?”

  “No.”

  “By their air of strain and disquiet, when I met the three of you yesterday evening, I more than suspected they had not told you. I guessed, and somewhat injudiciously hinted as much.”

  “They knew, didn’t they?”

  “Yes, of course they knew! We can both understand their reluctance to speak out. But they likewise knew it would be my duty to inform you fully. They left the job to me; I have done so; and the hour grows late. When I think of those two: alone in that big house, lacking judgment, with even Harald gone and nobody to advise them but an old hulk like myself, I sometimes wonder …”

  Against night stillness, shatteringly, the telephone in the outer room began to ring.

  Ira Rutledge pointed to the telephone extension here on the table at his elbow, and took it up.

  Jeff rose to his feet and moved closer. It would not be true to say that a premonition of dread struck him as soon as he heard the phone ring. But he felt something like it when Ira answered and the voice of Dave Hobart rose as clearly as though the phone had been at Jeff’s own ear.

  “Ira? I—I—”

  “Yes, this is Ira Rutledge. What is it, Dave? Why are you calling at this time of night?”

  “I called you,” Dave cried, “after I’d called the family doctor. Not for the same reason, but I want to know what to do! The place is upside down; the police are here; there’s hell to pay in every direction!”

  “Dave, control yourself. I beg you for heaven’s sake to control yourself! You must not upset your sister by wild behavior and talk still more wild. Serena! Think of Serena! Where is Serena?”

  “Well, that’s the main reason I called,” replied Dave. Then, just before his voice soared and cracked, he added, “Serena’s dead.”

  11

  UNDER AN OVERCAST night sky, with wind a-rustle in foliage, Jeff left the Stutz in the garage behind Delys Hall and walked slowly round to the front. Several cars stood in the drive. Though most ground-floor rooms seemed to be illuminated, upstairs he could see lights only in the bedroom above the front door. And the front door was opened by Uncle Gil himself.

  Alert, keen-eyed, carefully dressed even at this hour, Gilbert Bethune studied his nephew with some concern.

  “How is it, Jeff? How do you feel?”

  “A little numb and light-headed. Nothing seems to be quite real. Sorry; I can’t help it.”

  “There’s nothing to apologize for. You’ve had a shock; it’s only natural. But if you’ve had a shock, you can imagine what it did to Dave. It’s knocked him endways, poor devil; I can’t say I blame him.”

  “What happened, Uncle Gil?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I know it’s Serena, that’s all. I was at Ira Rutledge’s office when Dave phoned, as you must have heard. And I knew the time must be getting on, but I hadn’t realized it was past midnight. Dave blurted out a few things, including the fact that the police were here. After saying Serena was dead, he seemed to collapse.”

  “He did collapse.”

  “Then who should come on the phone but Lieutenant Minnoch? The lieutenant asked Ira if I wasn’t there, and then said you said to get on out here as soon as possible. What happened to Serena?”

  Uncle Gil jerked his head ceilingward.

  “She fell, jumped, or was thrown from a window of her bedroom up there. She fell on the flagstones out in front.”

  “Well, that’s quite a drop. But—” Jeff recoiled from the picture in his mind. “Was she—badly smashed up?”

  “She wasn’t smashed up at all. Her heart gave out, Dr. Quayle says. When you’ve known a person almost all your life, as you’ve known Serena, it’ll be hard to think of her as ‘the body.’ But the body’s been removed; there are no grisly sights. Now tell me. Do you want to turn in and try to forget all this for the time being? Or would you rather hear what we’ve managed to learn so far?”

  “Turn in? I couldn’t sleep now if my life depended on it! I’d rather hear anything there is to hear.”

  “Then follow me.”

  Striding ahead at his long-legged pace, Uncle Gil led the way through lighted minor drawing-room, lighted library, dark billiard-room and dark gunroom to the lighted door of the study at the rear. In the study he stood with his back to the rolltop desk, now closed.

  “‘Fell, jumped, or was thrown,’” Jeff quoted bitterly. “Are the superstition merchants at it again? If some power can throw one victim downstairs and break his neck, is it all over the house? Is somebody suggesting the same power can pick up another victim and pitch her out of an upstairs window?”

  “No,” retorted Uncle Gil, “and nobody’s going to suggest it while I’m in charge. This was a human agent, but how did the agent work?

  “Here are the facts. It seems there was quite a gathering here earlier in the evening. We can clear that up when we question everybody tomorrow; I mean today. The last visitor to leave was Penny Lynn, who said good night not long before ten-thirty.”

  “I know; she phoned me from home.”

  “Very well!” Uncle Gil squared his shoulders. “It also seems Serena had been out very late the night before. It wasn’t eleven o’clock when she said they’d better call it a day. Dave agreed; evidently he hadn’t got much sleep Friday night. They went their separate ways, Serena to her room at the front and Dave to his own room at the back, the same room he’s occupied since he was a boy.

  “The whole business might not have been discovered until much later, possibly not until this morning, if it hadn’t been for one of the servants. The chauffeur is a young fellow called Isaac, new since your time. They’re a good deal more lenient with the help than a lot of people would be. This chauffeur …”

  “Penny mentioned that too,” Jeff interrupted. “The chauffeur had asked to go out; Dave gave him permission to take the touring-car. Yes?”

  “Isaac was supposed to be back by eleven o’clock or catch it from Cato, who’s quite a disciplinarian. He wasn’t back by eleven; he did make it at eleven-twenty. There was a light in Serena’s room, which wouldn’t have roused curiosity. But the headlamps of the car picked up someone lying on the terrace.

  “He found Serena there, so recently dead she was still warm, a little to the right of the extreme right-hand window in the window-panel above; it would have been the extreme left-hand window to anybody looking out of the room. Serena wore pajamas with something over them; there’s argument about what she wore over the pajamas.

  “Isaac put the car away; Cato met him at the back door; together they carried Serena into the house and upstairs. They shouldn’t have moved her, of course; but we’ve got to make allowances for their state of mind.

  “The door of Serena’s room was bolted on the inside. For that moment they put her in another bedroom, while Cato woke up Dave. Then the uproar started. Following me so far?”

  “Closely.”

  Gilbert Bethune took a cigar out of his upper left-hand vest pocket, but did not light it.

  “Dave phoned Dr. Quayle,” he went on. “Kennet
h Quayle and I are both old friends of the family. Before the doctor paid his visit he phoned me, saying he wouldn’t be able to issue a death certificate under the circumstances. I got in touch with City Hall and managed to catch Harry Minnoch. With others following, we chased out here as fast as a police car could bring us.

  “By that time the whole place was in an uproar. They’d pried open the door of Serena’s room so they could take her there. We questioned the servants and sent ’em to bed. When I’d got some sort of coherent statement from Dave—it was in the library out there—he ran to the telephone and rang Ira Rutledge. Then he almost literally keeled over; he’d have dropped the phone if Minnoch hadn’t caught it. Dr. Quayle put him to bed and injected a sedative; Dave needed one. I like that young fellow; I’ve always liked him, though he doesn’t seem to trust me much in return.

  “And now, if you can face the contradictory evidence in Serena’s room,” said Uncle Gil, making for the door of the study, “come with me again. Keep your eye on Harry Minnoch. Harry’s a pretty good cop, an honest cop. But I once told him he lacked subtlety, and he can’t forget it; he’s determined to be subtle if it chokes him. How do you feel, Jeff?”

  “Like a completely useless intruder. I can’t do any good here; whatever happened, it’s as though I hastened the whole trouble by accepting Dave’s invitation.”

  “You can do some good here, you know. Before that sedative took over, the last thing Dave said was, ‘Jeff’ll rally round, won’t he? He won’t desert the ship even before it begins to sink?’”

  “I’ll stand by, of course, if that’s what anybody wants. But—”

  Once more Jeff followed Uncle Gil. In the lower hall, under a soft glow of electric candles, they met a silver-haired, worried-looking gentleman descending the staircase with his black bag in his hand.

  “I have just told your lieutenant,” Dr. Quayle informed the District Attorney, “that I can’t testify as to what poor Serena may have been wearing over her pajamas, or what kind of slippers may have been on her feet. I was concerned with the victim, not her costume. When I saw her on the bed up there, to the best of my recollection she wore only pajamas; no footgear of any kind. Since they’ve taken her away now, and I can be of no more service …”