Deadly Hall

by John Dickson Carr

  Crushing out the cigar in an ashtray, he rose to his feet.

  “I have no idea,” he added, “who wanted to harm Serena and may want to harm Dave. I agree with Ira that it’s unlikely to be either you or the esteemed cleric from Boston. But I now have some of the facts and can draw certain inferences.”

  “Well, what next?”

  Gilbert Bethune’s eye strayed towards the safe in the room’s northwestern corner.

  “After your discovery that Commodore Hobart’s log had been removed from there, I think you said, Dave himself made some notes of what he could remember from the log. Where are the notes now?”

  “In that desk in the opposite corner, if they’re still there.”

  Uncle Gil went to the desk and rolled up its top.

  “The notes are here,” he reported, lifting two small sheets of notepaper in Dave’s impatient handwriting. “Though I hardly think I shall need these, I had better take them. The police will have gone long ago, except Officer O’Bannion; but if they followed instructions they left a car for me. Now try to get some sleep, Jeff. Tomorrow, not too early, I mean to rout you out and hale you away to town like Jack Ketch. Meanwhile, thanks; you’ve been very helpful. A bientôt.”

  Thus it happened that, after troubled slumber—sometimes deep, sometimes with shocks or starts of wakefulness—Jeff rose and dressed to intermittent rain-noises at just past noon on Sunday.

  Cato found him wandering aimlessly downstairs and insisted on serving him scrambled eggs in the refectory. Despite lack of appetite, he ate what he could. Cato, vanishing, reappeared after Jeff’s second cup of coffee.

  “Mist’ Dave been wantin’ to see you, Mist’ Jeff. Say he mus’ see you, no mattuh whut! You go on up and see him, Mist’ Jeff?”

  “Yes, of course I will! How is he this morning, Cato?”

  “Still mighty po’ly, you ast me. Tuck up his breakfus’; he ate less’n you did. Doctuh been and gone. P’leece offisuh gone too. Mist’ Dave won’ say how he feel; think Cato don’ know?”

  Momentarily the rain had passed over. Glancing out through one of the open windows, Jeff could see his uncle’s Buick approach and draw up. Gilbert Bethune himself, in raincoat and soft hat, carrying a brief-case, unfolded his length out of the car. Jeff went to the window, tipping a hand to his forehead as Uncle Gil raised the brief-case in greeting.

  “Cato, please tell my uncle I’ve gone up to look in on the patient. I shall be down again in a moment.”

  While Cato went to answer the front door, Jeff hastened upstairs. At the rear of the upper hall a transverse passage, like the transverse passage in front, stretched the house’s full breadth. At the end of this passage, westwards and on the right, was the closed door of Dave’s bedroom. At the left a back stairway led down to a similar passage and a side door on the floor below.

  Replying to Jeff’s knock, a somewhat fuzzy voice bade him enter.

  The windows back here, smaller and less elaborate than those in front, all had curtains. Though these curtains were open, they admitted only the light of a murky day on comfortable furniture, pictures of sailing ships, a well-stocked, untidy bookcase, and the silver cup won by Dave for debating at preparatory school.

  Pajama-clad Dave, propped up in another canopied bed with a breakfast tray hardly touched but a well-filled ashtray on the bedside table at his elbow, waved away all inquiries.

  “Still full of that damn dope,” he said. “I’m absolutely all right, old son, except when I get to thinking about what happened. Look, Jeff. Sorry about last night; sorry I acted like an old woman!”

  “Easy, Dave. You didn’t act like an old woman.”

  “And I can’t see why they’re so concerned about me. It’s Serena they ought to be thinking about, not me!”

  “Easy, I said!”

  “You won’t run out on me, will you? You will stay on for a few days?”

  “Here I am, Dave.”

  “Speaking of staying in town,” Dave continued, evidently not conscious of the illogic, “do you know they even had a cop on duty outside all night?”

  “Yes.”

  “He looked in here before he went off duty. I asked him to do something for me, and I hope he has. Another thing, Jeff.” Groping for his cigarettes, Dave found one and lighted it. “I can guess most of what Ira Rutledge must have told you. After Serena and me, anything left of the estate goes to you and old What’s-his-name. We didn’t tell you; we couldn’t bring ourselves to tell you!”

  “That’s understandable, Dave.”

  “It’s not all Serena didn’t tell you, either. She kept making out she was so all-fired anxious to get rid of this house and get out; I backed her up. But that’s not true; it never was true. She’s as fond of the old place as I am, or more so. You sort of suspected that, didn’t you?”

  “Whether or not I suspected, Penny Lynn was sure of it.”

  “Penny? You didn’t tell her …?”

  “At that time, early in the week, I didn’t know anything to tell her. When I remarked that you were probably selling Delys Hall to one Earl George Merriman, Penny said, ‘Serena won’t like that; she won’t like it at all.’”

  “Last night, before all the hobgoblins descended, Penny was here. So was Kate Keith, who charged in and grabbed Malcolm Townsend. Which reminds me, Jeff. This fellow Townsend is all right; I like him. But should you say he’s a man the women would go for in a big way?”

  “No, not particularly. Why?”

  “Because you’d be wrong. It’s the same damn thing with any women you talk to! A woman will say some man is attractive, prefacing it,” Dave mimicked, “with ‘awfully’ or ‘terribly,’ and challenge you to name somebody you think they’d go for. Then, when you do name somebody, she looks at you as though she’d been asked to find great sex appeal in the hunchback of Notre Dame. Kate Keith …”

  Whereupon Dave again went off at a tangent.

  “I myself, moi qui vous parle, wasn’t entirely frank when I spoke to the cops or your uncle. Maybe I ought to correct that, but—”

  “You might try to be frank with Uncle Gil, at least. He wants to help; he’s on your side all the way. And he’s just arrived to take me on some sort of errand in town, so I’ve got to go. Why weren’t you frank with him?”

  “All of a sudden, out of nowhere, I got a suspicion of something I’ve lived with as long as I can remember. It scared me; it scared the pants off me. So I didn’t mention it, though you ought to guess what it is. And I’ll take your advice. If you say it’s safe to trust Uncle Gil, I’ll trust him. Feel free to tell him anything I’ve said. I’m getting up soon; I’ll tell him the rest later. Meanwhile, there’s a copy of Palgrave on that chair by the floor lamp; throw it over here and go your ways.”

  Jeff closed the door behind him. In the lower hall Cato bowed and nodded towards the library.

  On the long table in the middle of the library, under stained-glass windows and tiers of ancient books, burned a lamp with a yellow silk shade. Gilbert Bethune, Mephistophelian eyebrows raised, stood on the far side of the table’s length, opening his brief-case. He pulled up a carved Jacobean chair and motioned Jeff to a similar chair opposite.

  “I myself,” Uncle Gil began, “have been up since eight this morning. It may be reported with some smugness that I have made and received several phone calls. Harry Minnoch has been gathering information with equal industry. He has also been fending off reporters, as Cato has been doing when they phone here. Our good lieutenant, furthermore, now broods over some weight on his mind (subtlety, perhaps?) about which he can’t yet be persuaded to speak. Before we set out for town …”

  “Yes, Uncle Gil?”

  “You may recall that yesterday I mentioned a mystery of our own, at present unquestionably allied to the mystery of what happened in that bedroom last night. I said I wanted to show you the original of a certain letter. Before we set out for town, you might care to look at it. It was sent from New Orleans late in March, addressed to me at City
Hall, and marked ‘personal.’ Though unsigned except for the two words at the end, and informative in only one respect …”

  “You mean the business Lieutenant Minnoch was talking about on the steamboat? You let yourselves get stirred up by an anonymous letter?”

  “The letter itself provides partial answers. Here it is.”

  From the brief-case Uncle Gil took a folded sheet of paper and handed it across. Unfolding the paper, seeing typewritten lines already much studied, Jeff spread it out under the lamp and sat down.

  Dear sir:

  This communication draws your attention to the murder of Thaddeus G. Peters at Delys Hall on the night of November 6th, 1910. Before you fling my letter into the wastepaper basket, impatiently exclaiming that you will pay no heed to anonymous correspondents and that anyway the victim’s death was an accident, have the simple justice to read further.

  Momentarily Jeff’s eye stopped. Reaching into his inside breast pocket, he found and unfolded the much smaller typewritten sheet pushed under the door of his stateroom during the journey downriver.

  “It’s not the same typing!” he announced. “The one addressed to me has smaller letters, and was probably done on a portable.”

  “Ah, the mysterious note directing your attention to number 701b Royal Street? From your description it seemed unlikely they would be the work of the same hand, or at least of the same typewriter. The letter to me was typed on a standard Remington by one who left no fingerprints. But you neglect your duty; continue reading!”

  Jeff did so.

  The number of those who meet serious injury through falling downstairs, even an ancient staircase, is very small. That the victim should break his neck in this way is an occurrence so rare as to be almost unheard of. Confirmation of my claim will be found in statistics provided by any insurance company.

  Again Jeff’s eye paused; he read the last sentence aloud. Despite that warm day, the atmosphere of the library seemed suddenly chilly.

  “But he did get his neck broken, didn’t he? Is there any doubt of that?”

  “No, there is no doubt of that,” said Uncle Gil. “On the other hand, it leaves us with a fairly miraculous accident. Anonymous or not, crank or not, my correspondent is right. Those are the insurance figures.”

  “But a freak accident—!”

  “After that sentence about the insurance company, Jeff, there is only one more paragraph. What does it say?”

  Should any guest in your own house arise at dead of night to explore downstairs, it must surely provoke your own curiosity? This guest, apparently, then found it necessary to march upstairs with a silver pitcher on its tray. Why was Mr. Peters there? What could he have been doing? When you have examined all the circumstances, sir, I suggest you will adopt the view taken by

  Yours sincerely,

  Amor Justitiae

  Jeff folded the letter and handed it back.

  “You take Love of Justice seriously, do you?”

  “Seriously enough, at least, to examine what he says. Your ‘freak accident,’ supposing it to have been that, befell a famous athlete in first-class physical condition, who for no apparent reason seemed to behave like a lunatic.”

  “According to Dave, those details about Peters carrying silverware, which he dropped, didn’t come out at the inquest or get into the press. Who could have learned all that?”

  “Anybody, at any age, with ears to hear. In 1910 I myself was only a young lawyer struggling to build up my practice. But I have not forgotten: the whole town buzzed with rumors, true as well as false.”

  “Anything worth remembering?”

  Turning away towards the bookshelves, Gilbert Bethune clipped and lighted a cigar. Again more Mephistophelian than avuncular, eyes sardonic, he turned back to the table.

  “Whenever I meet you, Jeff, I seem to smoke far more than is good for me. But then so do you, and neither of us has the least intention of giving it up.”

  His tone grew businesslike.

  “In 1910, technically,” he explained, “Thad Peters was managing director of Danforth & Co., Fine Woodwork. In actual fact he had far more power than that. His elder sister had married Raoul Vauban. With the backing of a rich and powerful clan, Thad was trying to get full control of Danforth’s. So was Harald Hobart, who eventually got it. For a time there was rivalry between them.

  “It seemed the friendliest kind of rivalry. Harald professed great liking for Thad, and always maintained there was somebody in the background, somebody whose identity he couldn’t guess, trying to make trouble for them both. Were you well acquainted with Harald Hobart?”

  “I’d met him, of course. That’s about all.”

  Uncle Gil pondered.

  “Strange, anomalous character: combining the close-mouthed with the overtalkative, good-natured but unpredictable! It’s not well known that on occasion Harald drank heavily. He never went on a spree or misbehaved in public. But he might confide to some total stranger in a bar what he’d never have told a close friend, and next morning forget he’d said anything at all.

  “One close friend was Dr. Ramsay, a brilliant surgeon who lived and still lives at Bethesda, Maryland. I don’t think he did much drinking at Ramsay’s, the doctor being one of those strong-minded Scots who object to booze. Serena, Harald’s favorite of his children, struck up quite a friendship with Laurel Ramsay, the doctor’s daughter, and has visited there too.”

  “These later remarks, of course, must refer to some time after the year 1910?”

  “They do, Jeff, they do; I was anticipating. However, as regards the charge made by Amor Justitiae in this letter,” and Uncle Gil returned it to the brief-case, “I can tell you what we’ve done.”

  “According to Lieutenant Minnoch,” said Jeff, reflecting hard, “he interviewed a retired detective named Trowbridge, who had been the lieutenant in charge of the Peters affair. Minnoch didn’t elaborate.”

  Gilbert Bethune blew a smoke ring and watched it dissolve.

  “There’s very little for me to elaborate,” he answered. “Zack Trowbridge, getting on in years but still alert, couldn’t give much help. He could add only one additional and random bit of testimony, which may or may not be significant.”

  “Oh?”

  “Seventeen years ago it seemed generally agreed that Thad Peters hadn’t cried out when he fell; there had been only the mighty crash of silver. All agreed to it, that is, except one maidservant, since dead and unavailable, who had been sleeping at the top of the house. The maid thought she had heard a faint cry of some kind. But she thought, she wasn’t certain, she’d heard it a little time before the crash of silver, and thought it came from outside the house.”

  “That doesn’t seem to—”

  “Perhaps not; interpret it as you like,” said Uncle Gil. “And yet it brings us round in a circle, don’t you see, to poor Serena, dead last night under circumstances equally grim and senseless? Whether we like it or not, present facts must be faced too. We had better be on our way to question some witnesses.”

  “Speaking of witnesses, Uncle Gil, who else among those concerned in this business has heard of Serena’s death?”

  “Everybody must have heard it; it was in the Sunday papers this morning. When the reporters were chased away from here, they had to be content with a police handout in town.”

  “Thanks for the warning. I had meant to phone Penny Lynn, but I won’t do it just yet. Penny will be so shocked and upset that … that …”

  “Yes, better wait.” Then the District Attorney meditated on his own concerns. “Last night, as already remarked, I neglected to look for something in Serena’s room which clearly must be there. The oversight has been corrected today, with satisfactory results, and an interesting discovery as well. There is still one more obvious line of inquiry; but, this being Sunday, it must attend the working week. I will just bet—”

  He did not finish, pausing at the clear peal of the doorbell. Through the open doors of library and minor drawin
g-room they could see Cato moving past to answer it.

  “For what I was about to say,” resumed Uncle Gil, pointing with the cigar, “substitute the statement that I will just bet I know who that is. It’s Ira Rutledge, or I am a veritable Dutchman rather than whatever hybrid I do happen to be! He phoned this morning, and said he thought his duty lay here.”

  It was in fact Ira Rutledge. After handing hat and umbrella to Cato, who murmured some words, the lawyer crossed the minor drawing-room and entered.

  “I did not even go to church,” he said, “after the impact of last night’s appalling news. Funeral arrangements, no doubt, will devolve upon me. Well, that’s as it should be!”

  “Before any funeral, Ira,” Uncle Gil reminded him, “there are certain unpleasant but necessary formalities to be carried out. Regrettable, of course, and yet …”

  “To be sure, to be sure; don’t apologize! In the meantime, though, a wreath for the front door would be neither premature nor unseemly? And—Dave! Poor Dave! Where is he, Jeff, and how is he?”

  “Poorly, Cato thinks. But he seems steady enough most of the time. He’s in his room, and says he’s getting up.”

  “If you’ll excuse me, then, I will just offer my condolences. In his room, eh? I think I remember—”

  “Before you go, Ira,” interposed Gilbert Bethune, “one question about rooms. Often though I have visited this house, I never spent a night here; you have. Harald Hobart’s wife, if memory serves, died about 1911 or 1912. When she was alive, which of those bedrooms upstairs did they occupy?”

  “Poor Amy? If it matters, they occupied separate bedrooms not long after they were married. Amy was in the so-called Queen Bess’s Room at the southeastern corner, and Harald in the Tapestry Room at the southwestern end.”

  “Though he never practised it, I believe Harald by profession was an engineer?”

  “He studied electrical engineering, but never graduated. He was too preoccupied with—with other matters. Excuse me, excuse me!”