“Which one was it?”
“I think the one named Wrayburn. But he was only there to order half a dozen of sherry, and didn’t stay more than a minute or two.”
Dr. Fell made another note. Hadley was growing restive; and Bellowes, whose long sobriety had done him no good, was beginning to twitch.
“Now, about the night of the 14th in question,” rumbled the doctor. “Let’s begin with the time you were in the bar of the Stag and Glove. What made you change to whisky and go away with a bottle of it?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Why do you ever do anything like that? I thought of it, and so I did.”
“Yes. I know,” admitted Dr. Fell. “With the idea of going out to this clearing called Grinning Copse and drinking the bottle?”
“That’s right. If I take a bottle home, Mrs. Witherson always starts to preach. She waits up for me. I hope you find this helpful,” said Bellowes between his teeth.
“How drunk were you?” asked Dr. Fell blandly.
“I was—padded. Muzzy.”
“Have you got a strong head?”
“No.”
“You started for Grinning Copse, I understand, at closing-time: ten o’clock? H’mf, yes. You sat down on an iron bench or chair in the copse and began on the whisky. Never mind; I know you’ve made a statement; but just tell me everything that comes back to you in connection with it.”
“There’s nothing more I can tell,” answered Bellowes, with a duller colour in his face. “Things began to run together and mix up then, but that was what I wanted them to do. I’ve got a hazy idea that at one point someone was talking to me; but don’t take this too seriously—I was probably speaking aloud myself. Reciting or something. I’m sorry; that’s everything. The next thing I knew I was sitting on some different kind of surface, which turned out to be leather; and in some different kind of place, which turned out to be the upstairs hall at Four Doors. You know what I did. I thought it was as good a place as any, so I just lay down on the sofa.”
“Can you put a time to any of this; even an approximate time?”
“No.”
“You say in your statement to the police—where are we?—‘At this time I do not think I went to sleep immediately. While I was lying there,’ and so on to describe the appearance of the figure in uniform. Are you certain you did not go to sleep?”
“No, I’m not sure.”
“What I am endeavouring to establish is this,” persisted Dr. Fell, with such unwonted sticking to the point that Hadley was disturbed. Every wheeze seemed to emphasise a word. “Were you conscious of an interval, any time between your lying down on the sofa and the time you saw the figure?”
“I don’t know,” groaned Bellowes, massaging the veins in the back of his hand. “Don’t you think I’ve been over all that a hundred times? I think there was an interval, yes. Something to do with the light—the moonlight. But I’m not sure what.” He broke off. “Are you a lawyer, by the way?”
Dr. Fell certainly sounded like one, though it was a suggestion which at any other time he would have repudiated with some heat.
“You’d call it a land of semi-conscious state, then?”
“Yes, that’s a polite way of putting it.”
“While you were lying there, do you remember any sounds, anyone moving, anything like that?”
“No.”
“But what roused you? I’m digging in here, you see. Something must have made you look up, or stirred you in some way?”
“I suppose it did,” the other admitted doubtfully. “I have a vague impression that it may have been someone talking, or maybe whispering. But that’s the closest I can get.”
“Now listen. I’m going to read over a part of your statement again.”
I should describe him as a medium-sized man wearing a uniform such as you see in the big hotels like the Royal Scarlet or the Royal Purple. It was a dark-blue uniform with a long coat, and silver or brass buttons; I could not be sure about colours in the moonlight. I think there was a stripe round the cuffs, a dark red stripe. He was carrying a kind of tray, and at first he stood in the corner and did not move.
Question: What about his face?
I could not make out his face, because there seemed to be a lot of shadow, or a hole or something, where his eyes ought to be.
Dr. Fell put down the sheet. In the light and warmth of a town, in a soft-carpeted hotel, such a figure had seemed merely fantastic. Here in the sealed countryside it was beginning to assume hues of something else altogether. Kent, who had not before dwelt too closely on that description of the face, felt a sensation very similar to that with which he had first seen Jenny’s body.
“Have you anything to add to that, Mr. Bellowes?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
“Would you recognise the face if you saw it again?”
“No, I don’t think so. It was a fattish kind of face, I think; or the shadows or something gave it that effect. Man,” cried Bellowes, and, to everyone’s acute discomfort, the tears of raw nerves or self-pity overflowed his eyes, “what do you think I am? I wasn’t in any condition to see it. If I hadn’t been what they call a camera-eye observer, I shouldn’t have seen anything at all, probably, and maybe I’m all out of focus as it is.”
“Now, steady!” urged Dr. Fell, disturbed. He wheezed violently. “You make a reference here to the ‘Blue Room.’ Was that where Mr. Kent was killed?”
“So they tell me.”
“And you didn’t go in there?”
Bellowes grew more quiet. “I know all about those finger-prints, or alleged finger-prints. But, in spite of them, I don’t honestly think I did go in there, even when I was drunk. From the time I was a kid I never liked that room. It was my grandfather’s, you see, that’s the reason for all the old-fashioned furniture, which went when I disposed of the house: and to keep me quiet, when I was a kid, my father turned the old man into something like an ogre.”
“One last point, Mr. Bellowes. Do you remember this tray or salver?”
“I remember seeing it.”
Dr. Fell leaned forward. “Was there anything on it?”
“On it?”
“Carried on it. Think! A number of small articles are put out in front of you, and you remember them all. It’s your gift. You must use it. Was there anything on that tray?”
Ritchie Bellowes put up a hand and rubbed his forehead; he stared down at the Wild West magazine; he shuffled his feet; and nothing happened.
“I’m sorry,” he apologised for the dozenth time. “No. There may have been. I don’t remember.”
“Thank you very much,” Dr. Fell said in a dispirited voice. “That’s all.”
But even so he had not finished. When they were on their way out he went back to ask the prisoner still one more question; whatever it was, Bellowes seemed to return a decided negative, and this appeared to cheer the doctor somewhat. During this interview Hadley, who had been corking himself down, had with some effort managed to keep silent. But when they were driving back to Northfield he let himself go.
“All right,” said the superintendent grimly. “Let’s hear it. I asked you much the same sort of question once before. What was being carried on that salver? Somebody’s head?”
“Yes,” replied Dr. Fell with every evidence of seriousness. “Mine. A sheep’s head, and a whacking great one, too. You know, I never realised until last night the purpose or meaning of that salver. It presented a real problem; and yet it’s quite simple. I must be running on senile decay.”
“Good,” said Hadley. “I mean, I’m glad you find it so easy. I confess that so far it escapes me. But that’s not the main point. You’re not going to divert me from the solid information I got from South Africa. You were bombarding me with a hell of a lot of ‘suggestive’ points yesterday evening, among them your new idea that somebody invited Bellowes to the house early in the evening on the night of the murder. What becomes of that now?”
Dr. Fell made a handsome concess
ion. “I withdraw it in the form in which it was presented. I also call your attention——”
“More suggestive points?”
“Didn’t you see any?”
“As soon as I begin to hear the call of mumbo-jumbo,” Hadley snapped, “I begin to have an idea (yes, I’ll admit it) that you’re probably on the right track. But I still don’t like it. One of these days, my lad, you’re going to come a cropper; and it will be the world’s most outstanding cropper. Why do you want our party buried down here again? If you want a look at the house, couldn’t you do it without bringing them back here? When they’re in London, at least I’ve got an idea I could keep my eye on them. But I’ve got no such comfortable feeling about Northfield.”
For a moment Dr. Fell did not reply. Their car circled the green at Northfield, and eased its way down a gravel road beside the church: a road dusted with snow as lightly as you might dust finger-print powder. At the end of a gradual descent the hedges curved and opened on the small grounds of Four Doors. The house was of that style of Queen Anne architecture which seems at once massive and yet squeezed together, as though the designer had tried to crowd too many arched windows into deep walls. The bricks were of a grimy colour; the front door, painted white like the window-facings, was as square as the house’s heavy length; and dead wisteria clung to its face. An abrupt little garden, with a herbaceous border and a sundial in a brick path up the centre, also clung to the front of it. The party from London had evidently arrived from the station: a big black sedan, cut ropes hanging from its luggage-grid, was slewed round in the drive. Behind the house you could see the slope of the hill, and one great elm against the sky. A wind blowing down from the east brought, very distinctly, the sound of the church clock striking noon.
They looked at it for a time; while that wind rattled in the bushes and a little dust-devil of snow danced round the sundial.
“You see what I mean?” inquired Hadley.
“I do not see what you mean,” said Dr. Fell. “Will you accept my assurance that there is absolutely no danger?”
The door was opened for them by Sir Gyles Gay, before their car had even come to a stop. Gay stood on the threshold with that slightly shivering air, as of one on the edge of a pool, with which many hosts either welcome or bid good-bye. He seemed still interested, even smiling, his hands behind his back as though in meditation. But his very correct tie was rumpled, and he greeted them with a certain gravity.
“Come in, gentlemen. I was wondering how long you would be. We have been here only an hour, but even in that time there have been certain happenings. Country air seems to have a curious effect.”
Hadley stopped dead on the doorstep.
“No, no,” their host assured them, with wrinkled amusement. “Not what you may be thinking; nothing serious. I mean that country air seems to bring about a sense of humour. But it is an unusual and perverted sense of humour, and,”—he looked back over his shoulder into a warm, comfortable hall—“I can’t say I like it.”
“What’s happened?”
Again Gay looked over his shoulder; but he made no move to go inside.
“You remember my telling you yesterday that we played all sorts of parlour games down here, including that of pinning a paper tail on a paper donkey?”
“Yes; well?” said Dr. Fell.
“I did not know, when you asked whether we would all come down here, whether you wanted us for the day only, or for several days. Anyhow, I set aside rooms for you gentlemen, in case you should care to honour me with a visit.” He looked at Dr. Fell. “It concerns the room which is at your disposal, doctor. Within the last half-hour, someone has had the highly humorous notion of taking a paper donkey’s tail and pinning it to the door of your bedroom.”
They looked at each other. But nobody was amused.
“That, however, is not all,” Gay went on, sticking out his neck and looking round each corner of the door. “The humourist has gone even further. Put in a highly ingenious place—where somebody was certain to find it soon—I discovered this.”
He took his hands from behind his back and held out a piece of stiff paper. It was a group photograph some eight by ten inches, taken by one of those professionals who lie in wait at amusement resorts and persuade you to buy the photograph afterwards. Kent recognised it easily as being the inside of the “fun-fair” at the Luna Park outside Durban. He remembered the slope of a rafter, a lemonade-stand by a window. The picture was taken from the top of the broad platform of one of those big slides or chutes by which you sail down into darkness. All the members of Dan’s crowd were standing at the top of the chute, most of them turning laughing faces towards the camera—though Melitta was looking dignified and Francine annoyed. Someone, who could not be seen because Dan’s body blocked the view, appeared to be sitting on the edge of the slide and making a sudden protesting gesture against the descent.
“Now look at the other side,” said Gay, turning the photograph over.
It was scrawled in exactly the same printing-handwriting they had seen before. It was in red ink, and had a sloppy look. It said:
THERE IS ONE MORE TO GO.
14
Red Ink
“VERY FUNNY, ISN’T IT?” asked Gay. “I was inclined to split my sides when I saw it. But you had better come inside.”
Four Doors, centrally heated, was as warm as the hotel had been. Gay took them across a comfortable hall and into a lounge where an additional fire had been lighted. Though the house was of massive build, with fan-lights over the pillared doors and white woodwork round high ceilings, Gay had overlaid it with furniture of genuine comfort. There was no sight or sound of anyone else about. But Gay closed the double-doors.
“Where did you find this?” Hadley asked quietly.
“Ah, there’s another piece of subtle humour,” said their host. “I went into the bathroom to have a wash. Then I reached out after a towel off the rail, and this fell out from among the towels.”
“When did you find it?”
“Not ten minutes ago. By the way, I have established one thing. When we arrived here at eleven o’clock, there was no such delightful piece of mummery hidden in the towels. You see, I keep a cook and two maids. When we got here Letty had just finished tidying up the bathroom and putting out fresh towels. Consequently——”
“Who knows about this, besides yourself?”
“Only the humourist who put it there. I hope you do not think I was indiscreet enough to tell Letty anything. I also pulled that donkey’s tail down off the door before (I hope) anyone spotted it. I don’t know when it was put up. I noticed it when I was coming out of the bathroom, on the principle that jokes never come singly.”
“Yes. And what do you think this means?”
“My good friend,” replied Gay, drawing himself up and looking Hadley in the eye, “you must know very well what I think it means. I am fond of good crimes in the abstract; but I do not like funerals. This has got to stop.” He hesitated, after which his face altered, and he addressed Kent with great gravity. “Sir,” he added, “I beg your pardon.”
“Granted readily,” said Kent, who liked him. “But why?”
“Because I was more than half inclined to suspect you. Er—you have been with Dr. Fell and the superintendent? Between eleven and twelve o’clock, I mean?”
“Yes. We were at the police-station then. But why suspect me, in particular?”
“Why, frankly,” responded Gay, with an air of candour, “because your turning up at the hotel yesterday seemed almost too good to be true. Also, because there has been a persistent rumour that you were more than a little interested in Mrs. Josephine Kent——”
“That can wait,” snapped Hadley. He turned to Dr. Fell and held out the photograph. “So you’ll give me your assurance that there’s no danger? How does this fit in with it?”
The doctor put his shovel-hat under his arm and propped his stick against his side. Settling his eyeglasses with a vaguely troubled air, he studied
the photograph.
“I don’t mind the donkey’s tail,” he said. “In fact, I think it rather moderate. There are times when I feel I deserve the fate of Bottom the Weaver. But this, honestly, is not one of them. On the other hand, it’s a complication I definitely do not like. Someone is growing frightened.” He looked at Gay. “To whom does this photograph belong? Did you ever see it before?”
“Yes, it’s mine. That is to say, I don’t know whether you’re aware of Reaper’s passion for having photographs taken. He sent me on a batch of them, showing his friends on aqua-planes, and his friends holding up glasses of beer, and so on.”
“H’mf, so. Where did you see it last?”
“I think it was in the desk in my study, with the others.”
“What is more, this isn’t ordinary writing-ink,” pursued Dr. Fell, scratching the nail of his little finger across the thick and flaky surface of the inscription on the back of the photograph. “It’s too viscid. It looks like——”
“Drawing-ink. That is what it is,” supplied Gay. “Just come with me.”
He seemed much stiffer than yesterday; he retained that hard glaze like the polish on a tombstone, even to his smile. As though coming to a decision, he led them to another pair of double-doors at the end of the room, and into a room fitted up as a study at the back of the house. Its windows looked out on a back-garden raked by the wind: on a gate in the brick wall, and the elms in the churchyard. But the study also was cheerful with firelight. It was conventional enough, with its bookshelves and busts above, except for an inner staircase ascending along the end wall: a room antiquated rather than ancient. Their host glanced towards this inner staircase before he indicated an open roll-top desk.
“There are, as you can see, four or five bottles of drawing-ink. Various colours,” he pointed out. “I seldom or never use them; but the winters pass slowly for me, and, one winter, my hobby was architecture. By the look of that printing, I should think the pen used was this.”
To Wake the Dead (Dr. Gideon Fell series Book 9) Page 15
