The Grindle Nightmare

by Q. Patrick

  I peered into the car and saw that the bird’s neck had been twisted round and round until it looked like a limp corkscrew.

  “A pair of human hands done it,” went on the old man. “I wouldn’t mind so much if she’d been took and ate but to find her just laying there grinnin’ at me—that riles me. I’ll have the law on the asterisk bastard that done it just as sure as hell fire.”

  As he drove off like the wrath of heaven, I did a simple feat of mental arithmetic.

  (1) Polly Baines

  (2) Polly Baines’ kitten

  (3) Roberta’s marmoset

  (4) Jo Baines

  (5) Bill Strong’s goose.

  Well, the corpora delicti in Grindle were certainly mounting up.

  On my arrival home I was greeted by Lucinda who informed me in a stage whisper that Mrs. Middleton had just called to see me and was waiting in the living-room. I entered to find the trim little figure of Valerie’s mother perched on Toni’s stiffest ladder-back chair. She rose and approached me eagerly.

  “You must pardon me, Dr. Swanson, for breaking in on you like this. But I have heard the most dreadful rumors. They tell me that Baines has been found dead—and that you discovered the corpse.” Her round blue eyes scanned my face. “Of course, I could hardly believe it, but in this valley—”

  I related what had happened, omitting to mention the fact that murder was suspected. Throughout my speech she stood gazing at me in horror.

  “How terrible! How really terrible! And one of the most reliable men in the village too.” A malicious tone had crept into her usually mild voice. “But it’s no wonder he should get killed that way. Trying to turn an honest penny by trapping muskrats just because Seymour paid him starvation wages! I think it is absolutely shameful!”

  “I have just been talking to Mr. Alstone,” I broke in hurriedly. “He is genuinely distressed and is being more than generous.”

  “Talk—more than generous!” Her little head was nodding violently. “Seymour is very glib with his tongue, but that poor widow will be out of her cottage and in the nearest gutter before Christmas. Mark my words, Dr. Swanson. Any man who can frighten his own son into divorcing his wife—! And he’s done worse than that, if we only knew.” She glanced at me darkly. “You remember all those tales that were going round the village not so long ago, tales of people who had seen a car riding over the country in the middle of the night—a car that was dragging something behind it? You remember all that, Dr. Swanson? Seymour was the first to see that they were suppressed. And why do you suppose he was so eager to stop people talking if there wasn’t something behind it?”

  I made some non-committal remark about village gossip but Mrs. Middleton was far too excited to be put off.

  “Ah, Dr. Swanson, you don’t know Seymour like I do—and you haven’t talked to the people whom he’s threatened into silence. There are dreadful things going on in this valley,” she continued inconsequentially. “My father lived here all his life, and as a tiny girl, I remember him telling me there was an old saying: ‘When the buzzards roost in Grindle Oak, Death comes to the valley’. I have never seen so man buzzards in my life as I have this fall. I’m afraid for Valerie. If only we could afford to move! Polly Baines has gone and so has her father. I wonder which of us will be the next!”

  She left on this sinister note, apparently satisfied with the impression she had made. Of course, her accusations against Seymour verged on the fantastic. But, it was curious that my theory about Baines having been dragged behind a car should have been thus corroborated. One might have thought that she had come on purpose to do so.

  Toni did not get back from the autopsy until two o’clock in the afternoon. Although accustomed to working on Sundays, he was absolutely all in and, refusing the enormous breakfast-lunch which Lucinda had prepared for him, went straight to bed. I did not see him again until about eleven o’clock that night when he routed me out of the living-room and expressed a desire for fresh air.

  Obediently I followed him into the lane. It was a cold night. The clouds were heavy and the moonlight shone across the countryside in fitful jagged patches.

  We had not gone very far before I broached the subject of the autopsy.

  “Did you get on all right?”

  “Yes, Brooks was only too glad to have my help.” Toni’s profile was suddenly illuminated as he lit his pipe. “It’s a queer business, Doug. Baines was drowned all right. We made a microscopic examination of the particles in the air spaces and alveoli of the lungs. They were what you’d expect in anyone who’d been drowned in a muddy creek.”

  “When d’you think it happened?”

  “Difficult to say exactly because the body had been in cold running water all night. We both agreed that he’d been dead for eight to ten hours when we saw him. Must have died between ten and twelve-thirty last night.”

  “Same old story. Almost anyone could have done it, eh?” Toni grunted.

  “But that’s not all. The poor devil’s body was just covered with abrasions. His clothes were almost in rags—”

  “So he might have been dragged behind a car!”

  “Looks that way.” Toni’s voice was deliberately flat and professional. “Whatever it was, he was alive when it happened. He was also alive when his two hands were fastened into those traps. Unconscious, perhaps, but alive. You could tell that from the bleeding and the state of the surrounding tissue.”

  “God! what a foul way to kill a person.” Despite my seven years of medicine, I believe I shuddered.

  Toni grunted again. He seemed to have lost interest in the conversation. For some minutes we walked in silence. At night the roads in Grindle are lonely, and we had not passed a soul since we left home. Even the covered-bridge over the creek, where occasionally some of the villagers congregated, was deserted. We lingered there a moment watching the sluggish water in the moonlight.

  I remember thinking how silent it was, and, while the thought was in my mind, a sound broke the stillness. Toni gripped my arm, and as I followed his pointing finger, it seemed to me that a small, dark portion of the landscape had broken loose from its moorings and was moving slowly over the rising field toward the deserted road where the bloodhounds had lost the scent of Polly Baines. Silhouetted against the angry sky, I could see it was a car, jolting over the meadows and without lights …

  “Good God! did you hear that?”

  Toni’s grip on my arm had tightened. Something in his tone made the hairs on the back of my neck move upward toward my hat.

  “No, what was it?”

  For a moment we stood and listened. The car was moving onward, slowly, relentlessly. Still, I could hear nothing but the faint throb of its engine. Then, it seemed, came another sound.

  “There! Hear it?”

  Toni turned and stared at me, his face gleaming white in the darkness.

  “Doug! It was the cry of an animal in pain—and it came from the back of that car!”

  I shall never be quite certain whether or not I heard that cry, but, as Toni spoke, something seemed to snap in my brain like a cut tendon. I rushed forward and scrambled through a hedge, regardless of scratches and bruises. Then I broke into a steady run, the hard wintry soil scrunching beneath my feet. It was but a short distance to the top of the rise where, at least, I would be able to see in which direction the car was headed. Almost, it seemed, as I tore on, I was on the threshold of a solution.

  There were footsteps pounding at my side. Toni had followed me.

  “Take it easy,” he cautioned. “If it’s the fellow we think it is, he’s pretty tough. Remember Baines.”

  I did not slacken my pace. The car had now disappeared over the receding edge of the field, but we were almost at the crest. In a minute we would be able to get a good view of the whole valley. I had, however, counted without the capricious moon, for as we stood panting on the top of the incline, she passed sullenly and impenetrably behind a dark bank of cloud. We listened intently, but there was no sound
except the usual noises of the night An owl hooted and then from somewhere behind us came the uncanny laughter of a loon. In the distance we heard the reassuring toot of a train whistle. Otherwise the valley was as silent as a morgue.

  We stood still a few moments listening to the sound of our beating hearts. Then, serene and silver, the moon emerged. But it was too late. The car—if car it really was—had vanished.

  From our point of vantage, however, we could still tell something about the movements of our neighbors. There was the Alstones’ house in the distance with one light twinkling in an upper window; the Goschens’ place bathed in darkness; a porch light only at the Tailford-Jones’; and a bedroom window at the Middleton’s. These pinpricks of illumination stabbed the distant darkness. Only the Baines’ cottage was bright. That was lit up like a casino.

  I was about to remark on this to Toni when I noticed he had turned away and was staring through some bushes into the little wood where the dead body of Roberta’s monkey had been found. He held up his hand in warning as I approached. With him I peered through the hedge.

  On the edge of the disused road, parked and without lights, was a large, expensive-looking car.

  I was in the act of pushing my way through to investigate when I heard something which made me pause. There was a woman inside that car and she was talking, eagerly, shrilly.

  “No, I won’t do it …”

  A man said something, but his tone was too low for us to catch. Again the woman spoke.

  “He wouldn’t stop at anything if I told him. He’s jealous, vindictive …”

  In the moonlight I could see a grim smile twitching around the corners of Toni’s mouth.

  “You know what’ll happen if you don’t … You’re a jellyfish, a goddam, spineless jelly-fish!”

  Toni was laughing softly.

  “Recognize the voice?” he whispered.

  “Roberta?”

  “Yes, our local Messalina!”

  “She’s mad at someone.”

  “Oh, just a lover’s quarrel.”

  “Doesn’t sound much like love.”

  “If you knew life and Roberta as well as I do, you’d realize that she never bawls ’em out until after she’s through with them. Then she eats ’em alive—like the female spider.”

  The woman’s voice was lifted once more.

  “Of course he’s crazy. That’s what makes him so dangerous!”

  Toni was pulling me away.

  “I’ve had enough eavesdropping for tonight,” he said gruffly. “The number of the car is RX819, so if you want to find out who the owner is, all you have to do is to keep your eyes open.”

  He seemed to be annoyed about something.

  It was after one o’clock when we descended the hill and made our way homeward. It would have been reasonable to suppose that our adventures were over for the night, but just as we were scrambling on to the road, a car dashed past in the direction of the Baines’ cottage. We followed it round a bend and saw Mark turning in to the broken shed which served him as a garage. Outside the cottage stood another car. The lights were on and I noticed at once that it was not the one we had just left.

  “Midnight automobile show,” I commented stupidly.

  “I believe that’s Thomson’s car,” Toni exclaimed. “Must have been a rush call. If that baby’s coming he’ll probably need some help.”

  And help was exactly what our excellent colleague, Dr. Josiah Thomson, did need at that moment. In fact, I never saw a man so glad to see two human beings in all my life.

  Quickly we sterilized our hands and borrowed clean aprons. I had not helped at a lying-in since my interne days and had almost forgotten what an intricate business it was. In the final stages I was appointed anesthetist while Thomson and Toni juggled perilously with life and death. If it had not been for Toni, Mrs. Baines would almost certainly have joined her husband.

  At length the child was delivered, a shrivelled, premature creature which opened its eyes once, and for a brief moment, there was another cry in the night—weak and wailing. But the thread of life had snapped even before we cut the umbilical cord.

  At last we sent Mark down to the kitchen to make us some coffee while Thomson went off to ’phone for an ambulance. He wanted to get the mother to the hospital as quickly as possible.

  Over the dark hills, the sun was peeping at Grindle Valley when we finally started homeward. A new day had begun already.

  And already it had brought forth Seymour Alstone, the earliest riser in the neighborhood. He was driving round the estate on his morning tour of inspection. When he saw us, he drew up his car and we gave him the news of Mrs. Baines.

  “Good thing,” he snapped when he heard that the baby was dead. “One less mouth to feed. How’s the mother?”

  “Bad way,” replied Toni grimly.

  “Well, she should have gone to hospital.”

  “The baby came a bit early—but she’s gone now.”

  Seymour gave us a disapproving nod and started his engine. Then he seemed to think better of it, for he switched off the ignition.

  “Probably doesn’t mean anything,” he said, “but I stopped by the kennels just now and found one of my dogs missing. Trainer—the best setter I’ve got. You haven’t seen him about anywhere, I suppose?”

  Toni and I looked at each other swiftly, then shook our heads in unison.

  “Well, you might keep your eyes open.”

  Mr. Alstone drove on. Toni was standing in the middle of the road, staring after the car in utter amazement. Then, clearly and distinctly, he exclaimed:

  “I—just—simply—don’t—believe it.”

  He became convulsed with almost hysterical mirth.

  “Good God!” he gasped, “and she called him a spineless jelly-fish!”

  I followed his shaking finger as it pointed after the fast disappearing automobile. Then I saw what it was that so amazed and amused him.

  The number of Seymour Alstone’s car was RX819.

  Chapter V

  In recording these events as they occurred in chronological order, I have tried to observe the accurate and impersonal precision of an article for the medical press. I have been truthful and—as far as facts and memory serve—exact. But it has been impossible for me to give more than the impressions of a single clinical observer. Had Bracegirdle narrated these same events he coúld doubtless have filled pages dealing with his findings and deductions. In fact, I feel reasonably sure that he could have made of them a very creditable attempt at a detective story. Coming from me, however, this record can never be more than an incoherent and rather loosely-knit mystery. I claim no inside knowledge, no startling theories. The affair, as it unfolded, baffled me just as completely as it baffled everyone else, including the police.

  I wish I could pay sufficient tribute to Bracegirdle for the hours of work that he and his subordinates must have put in to find—precisely nothing. All I can say is that, in their efforts to discover Polly Baines, they literally did not leave a stone unturned in Grindle and they followed every possible clue that might lead to the murderer of her father. The crimes had been committed with all the apparent nonchalance of an unreasoning maniac. Yet, when Bracegirdle came to analyze the surrounding circumstances, he found himself up against an uncanny premeditation and cunning which argued a remarkably high level of intelligence on the part of the killer—and, incidentally, a profound knowledge of the habits of the neighborhood.

  It was not that information was lacking. Everyone in the countryside was ready to step forward and tell some fantastic story about strange things that they had seen or heard. The agonized cries of animals and children might have been supposed to make the night hideous in Grindle. The normal depredations of foxes, skunks and hawks were inevitably put down to criminal—even supernatural—agency.

  As for the supernatural element, there were many who firmly believed that the Devil himself was at large. Strange portents were bruited about on all sides. An abnormal number of buzza
rds in the neighborhood argued more and more disaster. Mrs. Baines was popularly supposed to have given birth to an unspeakable monster on the night following her husband’s death.

  These rumors had tangible effects on various people. All those who were in any way strange were regarded with odium and distrust. Poor Mark was discharged by all his employers excepting the Middletons and ourselves. Millie, in a moment of panic, fired her excellent Japanese waiter without notice and served such bad cocktails in consequence that the Gosch ens themselves came to be regarded as having sinister intentions toward their guests. The shell-shock and other regrettable accidents which Edgar Tailford-Jones had suffered in the war, became exaggerated to psychotic proportions. God alone knows what was said about Toni and me, but nothing and no one was entirely free from suspicion.

  On Wednesday I attended the inquest on Baines—a drab gloomy affair without a ray of light or humor to liven up the proceedings. What little evidence there was pointed definitely toward murder, though it was admitted as possible that his death might have been the result of some hideous accident. For a man of sober habit, however, such a form of death would have been undoubtedly both difficult and improbable. The verdict was deferred pending further investigations.

  Now that there were no longer any intriguing medical aspects to the case, Toni promptly lost interest and returned to his rats and guinea-pigs at Rhodes. I, too, showed admirable callousness and, in my free time, continued my riding, hunting and shooting as before. Social activities increased in proportion to the general uneasiness, and everyone showed that gregariousness which, following upon calamity, is a sure sign of frayed nerves and disquieted minds. Hardly an evening passed when we did not pay or receive visits, but nothing of any real importance occurred until the Saturday evening following the death of Baines. And this incident will always be fixed in my mind as one of the most astonishing and inex-plicable in the whole affair.

  The disappearance of Polly had left me comparatively cold. My discovery of Baines’ body was unpleasantly gruesome, but to a doctor it was all in the day’s work. The next outrage, however, was so utterly illogical that, even now, I feel a kind of frustrated rage and disgust when I think about it. But then, of course, it happened under my very nose, as it were. Besides, Valerie was involved.