A Night of Errors

by Michael Innes

  ‘Well, there were triplets, as you know. So it might be the third brother.’

  With a grotesquely theatrical gesture, Hyland flung despairing arms in air. ‘Madness!’ he cried. ‘The whole thing is a nightmare. Three identical brothers creeping round the place with each other’s dead bodies! It’s like a drunken hallucination.’

  Mr Greengrave looked up quickly. ‘Dear me!’ he said. ‘I hope it’s nothing like that.’

  ‘It is worse.’ Dr Hubbard spoke dryly again. ‘It is a hopeless cast into the darkness of what appears to be a singularly impenetrable crime.’

  Appleby shook his head. ‘Say a complicated crime – and for that reason the less likely to be impenetrable. But I confess that the discrepant identifications trouble me. The notion that one body may have been substituted for another similarly injured body while Sergeant Morris here was out of the room is admittedly but one possibility among many–’

  ‘But surely it is extremely far-fetched.’ Mr Greengrave spoke with sudden conviction. ‘Consider the burning of the hands and arms. That a second body–’

  ‘Not a bit of it, sir.’ Rather surprisingly, Sergeant Morris had abruptly interrupted. ‘What do you do when you want to pass off one boy as another during a conjuring trick? Why, give each of them an Eton collar and a big black patch over one eye. The similarities, as you might say, distract the eye from the differences. Not that I hold with the substituting idea myself.’

  ‘Don’t you, now?’ Hyland turned to his subordinate without enthusiasm. ‘Perhaps there is some idea you do hold with?’

  ‘Well, yes – there is. It appears to me like this, sir. Sir Oliver Dromio came upon somebody extraordinarily like himself. I think something’s been said about a brother.’

  Appleby nodded. ‘Two,’ he said. ‘Conceivably he had a choice between two.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. Well, if it was a brother the thing becomes even more horrible. Sir Oliver, I reckon, wanted to fade out quietly. Money difficulties, perhaps – or it might be women. Now, if you want to quit and no questions asked, the best way to go about it is to leave your own body behind you.’

  Dr Hubbard looked at Hyland. ‘This man,’ he said with faint malice, ‘talks sense.’

  ‘Moreover, sir, if you are feeling kindly towards anybody – say a mistress or somebody like that – you can do them a bit of good in the insurance line. Well, that is what Sir Oliver Dromio did. He found this long lost brother and realized that the two of them were as like as two peas. So he brought him here quietly, killed him, changed clothes with him, and disappeared. Nobody is going to search for Sir Oliver, because here is Sir Oliver dead. And this explains the strange business about the fire, and the burnt arms and hands. Nobody who got suspicious-like would ever take the corpse’s fingerprints and compare them with any which might be found preserved on possessions of Sir Oliver’s. Because the corpse, you see, no longer had fingers to take prints from. It was a clever plan – very clever, indeed.’

  ‘Only it didn’t work.’ Mr Greengrave was looking at this subordinate policeman with frank admiration. ‘Or rather it worked at first – until it so happened that Dr Hubbard and I detected the imposture.’

  ‘Quite so, sir. But then there’s the question – Did you? Of course Sir Oliver Dromio’s plan has failed thus far: that suspicion is now aroused and he will be hunted for. Still, whose body does lie in the study there? Suppose that property and such-like were to turn on the answer. Can’t you see a barrister making a good case for its being really Sir Oliver’s, and the first identification the right one? Though of course one would want to know about the teeth.’

  ‘The teeth?’ asked Mr Greengrave innocently.

  ‘Certainly, sir. If the body still has any of its own teeth then Sir Oliver’s dentist could say conclusively whether the body is Sir Oliver’s or not.’

  ‘How very interesting.’ Mr Greengrave turned to Dr Hubbard. ‘Perhaps,’ he suggested, ‘you can say something about the teeth?’

  ‘I’m not a dentist. But the body as I examined it there has teeth – very good teeth which have received comparatively little dental attention.’

  ‘Even a little would serve. Not that I haven’t heard of corpses having had a dentist at them by way of disguise.’ Morris grew expansive. ‘Whole rows of another man’s stoppings copied all at one go. I’ve heard–’

  ‘You’ve heard a great deal of balderdash, it seems to me.’ Hyland appeared still to hold his subordinate in disfavour. ‘Not,’ he added magnanimously, ‘that you haven’t been talking a good deal of sense. In fact, your explanation is the best and simplest we yet have. I think I may say that something of the sort has been forming itself in my own mind.’

  ‘Capital!’ said Dr Hubbard. ‘It is reassuring to see a consensus of professional opinion beginning to form upon so perplexed a matter. But here are three policemen, and so far only two voices.’ He turned to Appleby. ‘Perhaps you, sir, have some other view of the problem?’

  ‘I cannot see the truth.’ Appleby spoke with a sudden energy which was startling. ‘I cannot see the truth because I cannot see, first of all, what was designed to appear the truth. In what persuasion was it designed that we should rest? Where does the criminal hope we stand now? Does his plan depend on our accepting that body as Sir Oliver’s? Or is it a plan subtler than that: does it depend on our penetrating to a deception as we have just, in fact, done? Does he hope that we are now saying, “Why, this is not Sir Oliver’s body after all!” – and are we still simply following a lead that has been given us? Is it indeed true that matters are still going smoothly for some person unknown or unsuspected?’ Appleby paused and smiled. ‘Such a huddle of questions, I am afraid, is hardly helpful. Nor is this simple statement: that I cannot get away from the downright queerness of that fire.’

  ‘Talking of fire–’ began Mr Greengrave.

  ‘The fire,’ said Hyland, ‘is to some extent covered by Morris’ theory. But I agree that there is something queer about it, all the same. One seems to smell a rat.’

  ‘Talking of smelling–’ said Mr Greengrave.

  ‘And now, what is to be done?’ Fatigue had blunted Hyland’s hearing or his manners. ‘Perhaps if we went back–’ He paused, a fresh thought seeming to strike him. ‘By the way, Morris, whom did you leave along there in the study?’

  ‘Leave, sir?’ Morris stared. ‘Why, you shouted in so urgent a way that I doubled straight along here without calling anybody.’

  Hyland’s lips moved. But he was interrupted, successfully this time, by Mr Greengrave. ‘What I wanted to remark,’ said Mr Greengrave, ‘is that I rather think I smell fire. Quite powerfully so, indeed.’

  It was true. The room was imperceptibly filling with an acrid smoke – and from somewhere outside there came in ominous crescendo a dry, crackling sound. With an oath Hyland leapt to the door and flung it open. It gave upon a long corridor. The farther end of this was already a blinding screen of flame. Sherris Hall was burning.

  12

  Momentarily the flames vanished behind a wall of dense black smoke; the wall billowed, broke, rolled down the corridor towards them in a suffocating wave; the wave eddied, whirled, receded; behind them half-opened windows were rattling as if shaken by a giant hand; the corridor was clear again and the screen of flame brighter than before. Fiery tongues lapped at air, or ran low along the floor like questing hounds. Beyond was a dull roaring sound, strangely hollow, as if this were some inverted cataract of burning waters running into space. For a second’s interval they stood watching; then they heard above the inhuman racket a high, screaming voice call for aid.

  Hyland sprang down the corridor. His silver buttons glittered as if molten; he still clutched the crumpled finery of his best white gloves. Almost immediately he was back again. He started to curse; thought better of it; compressed his lips against some suddenly apprehended pain. Dr Hubbard took him by the arm. ‘No good,’ he said. ‘We must get round by the terrace.’

  They turned, ran throu
gh the library, tugged at heavy curtains before a French window. As they did so the lights went out. Darkness and the flicker of the advancing flames were for a moment at interplay around them. Then they were out upon the terrace in the last hour of a summer night.

  A faint grey light was on the lawn and somewhere beyond it a single blackcap still sang; in the east low clouds lay across a sky of apple-green and rose. Sweeping up the drive came the unhurrying headlights of a car; perhaps it was the ambulance for which Sergeant Morris had waited in vain. They turned. The house too was peaceful and sleeping. It rose above them here in a faintly perceptible warmth of mellow brick, and if a first pall of smoke already hung fatally over it this was as yet invisible against the darkened zenith. Undisturbed, the blackcap tried another phrase.

  The delusive calm held only for a moment; it was broken, queerly, by a crash and tinkle of falling glass; almost immediately above them a single tongue of flame shot into the sky. Voices were calling; windows could be heard thrown up; a police whistle shrilled in short urgent blasts. And then all these sounds were drowned beneath the clangour of a great bell. Someone in the stables had given the alarm.

  ‘It seems localized so far.’ Hyland had taken charge. ‘Morris, collar someone who can check over the household as we get them out. Assemble everybody on the lawn. Doctor, make for the nearest telephone and make sure of the Fire Service. Mr Greengrave, find the ladies and keep an eye on them. Appleby, we’ll get those bodies even if we sizzle for it.’

  They parted and the two men ran along the terrace and rounded a corner. At once they saw both the centre of the fire and the extent to which it had already spread. From the study windows shot great tongues of fire. Already the blaze had reached two storeys up, and the crash of rafters could be heard. ‘Old,’ said Hyland; ‘panelled, wasn’t it? Go up like a tinder box.’

  Appleby nodded. ‘No go, I’m afraid. And, after all, better the quick than the dead. Servants in the attic is the likeliest danger. Better get through as much of the house as we can.’

  ‘Very well.’ But Hyland hesitated, his eye lingering on what was now the fiery inferno of Sir Oliver Dromio’s study. ‘Didn’t you say something about a plan going forward step by step? This looks to me like a little more of it.’

  ‘It certainly doesn’t look like mere coincidence. Still, there was that great fire someone pitched the body in. It might have started some mischief in the chimney. Or smouldering fragments of clothing–’

  ‘Fiddlesticks! Morris was in that study not much more than half an hour ago. And look at the fire now! A four-gallon drum of petrol is the likeliest explanation I can see… It looks as if everyone were being got out all right.’

  They were now before a side-entrance to the house in a wing as yet remote from the fire; through this, shepherded by policemen, was passing a huddle of servants in various states of undress. As they looked Mr Greengrave appeared with Lady Dromio on his arm; in an effort to set an example of composure they walked with a studied formality and rather as if going in to dinner; behind them came Mrs Gollifer, assisting some hysterical girl. A moment later Dr Hubbard appeared, followed by a policeman; both were as black as chimneysweeps, and as they hurried forward they brought with them a smell of acrid smoke and singed cloth. Dr Hubbard shook his head. ‘No good,’ he called. ‘Only a couple of telephones in the place and neither could be got at, try as we would. A fatal piece of parsimony, I am afraid. The nearest is at Hodsoll’s farm, and a constable has gone to it. But not much of Sherris will be left by the time the Brigade gets here.’

  Hyland nodded. ‘But we have plenty of men, sir, and at least we can organize something. The first question is whether everybody is out.’ He glanced at the group collecting round him. ‘Where is Miss Dromio?’

  ‘Gone round to the back courtyard, sir.’ It was the footman Robert who spoke. ‘There’s a groom there and she’ll be all right. Wants to see the dogs safe, I reckon.’

  ‘That won’t do.’ Hyland in such a crisis as this had the merit of entirely knowing his own mind. ‘I’ll have everybody here on this lawn, and nowhere else.’ He turned to a constable. ‘Go with this fellow and bring them both round.’ Again his eye circled the group before him. By now the fire was sweeping into the nearer parts of the house; windows were cracking and flame leaping through; a flicker of dull crimson light began to play upon the circle of pale faces in the grey of dawn. Hyland frowned as if in some effort of recollection.

  ‘Sebastian Dromio,’ said Appleby quietly.

  ‘Great heavens – we locked him up!’ Several times in the course of the night’s adventures Hyland had been dismayed, but not to the extent he was now. ‘Surely–’

  ‘Then let us hope,’ said Appleby mildly, ‘that somebody has thought to unlock him. His character is unamiable, I don’t doubt, and he has Grubb’s blood on his hands, at least. Still, it wouldn’t look well.’

  ‘Where the devil is Morris? It was Morris–’

  As if in answer to Hyland’s question there was a crash of glass from a direction now almost entirely obscured in smoke; the smoke swirled apart and revealed a ruddy glare from amid which staggered Sergeant Morris, stooping under the weight of an inert body across his shoulders. He dumped his burden on the grass almost at Hyland’s feet. ‘It’s Mr Dromio,’ he said. ‘And that only leaves the butler.’

  ‘The old fellow Swindle? Can’t he be got out?’

  Morris shook his head – both soberly and painfully, for his face was scared and scorched. ‘I’m afraid not, sir. He wasn’t in his bedroom, and it seems he probably continued to sit up. He has a little basement room right under where the worst of the blaze is now. Without the firemen here there’s just no getting near it.’

  In a momentary silence they stared at what was now the full-scale conflagration before them. This time, Appleby thought, more was going to go up than a mere nursery wing; it looked indeed as if within a couple of hours Sherris Hall would be an empty shell. A chain of men was being organized to bucket water from the lily pond, and one fire-hose had been carried round from the offices and brought into operation. But all this was as nothing before the blaze; the house was like some vast Tartarean monster wounded and in a hundred places gushing fire. Blast upon blast of hot air caught at the breath as one watched and already on the lawn there lay a coating of fine grey ash flecked here and there with soot. The glow of the flame rose as if to meet and answer the sunrise, now blood red in the east. It was as if beacon were calling to beacon across the shires.

  ‘Madness.’

  They started and turned. Sebastian Dromio had struggled weakly to his knees and was staring at the blazing house. ‘Madness,’ he repeated, and his voice although hoarse was wholly sober. ‘My brother did it once. I knew very well it was he. He fired the place in madness, and in madness he died. But which one of us has done it now?’

  ‘Which of you, indeed?’ Hyland looked down grimly at the old man. ‘Which of you – and why?’

  ‘Where is Lucy?’ With a further effort Sebastian Dromio staggered to his feet and looked about him.

  ‘Miss Dromio is safe enough. She has been saving the dogs. The only possible casualty is the butler. We are afraid that he must have perished.’

  ‘Swindle?’ Sebastian relaxed and sat down again. ‘Let the surly old brute roast; he might as well get used to what it feels like.’ Upon this untimely pleasantry Sebastian chuckled – and the chuckle turned to a cracked and evil laughter. Suddenly he checked himself. ‘You say Lucy is safe? She ought to be here. I don’t like it.’

  ‘No more do I.’ As Hyland spoke he caught sight of Robert approaching with a pale-faced groom. ‘You, there! Why isn’t Miss Dromio with you?’

  ‘It seems she went back, sir.’ Robert was agitated. ‘The fire didn’t seem near her own room, and she ventured back for something.’

  This time Hyland wasted no time on swearing. ‘Where is the room?’

  ‘There, sir, Robert pointed. And as he did so – and for all the world like a coup d
e théâtre – Lucy Dromio appeared. At a first-floor window – but high above their heads, because of the loftiness of the lower rooms – she stood looking down, and with what appeared to be perfect calm. But, even as they watched, the darkness behind her was shot with livid flame. Through the window she must come, or the fire would take her.

  Once that night Appleby had circled Sherris Hall with an inquiring torch and eye. He darted forward now – and was fleetingly aware as he did so that with surprising strength Sebastian Dromio was hurrying forward too. ‘Stay still!’ he shouted – and saw the girl nod as if, above the roar of the fire, she had heard and understood. He turned and ran towards that wing of the house which alone was now untouched by the fire. Here was the billiard-room; he broke into it by pitching himself through a window bodily; tore from the table the canvas covering that shrouded it and raced back to the spot beneath Lucy Dromio’s window. He called out and men hurried towards him. In the same moment he caught a glimpse of Sebastian.

  Only five minutes before Sebastian had been carried from the burning building helpless and apparently insensible; now he was stumbling up a wrought-iron spiral staircase which led to the flat roof of what appeared to be a conservatory or palmhouse. A constable was endeavouring to overtake him. But surprise had given him a good start and, even as Appleby looked, he gained the roof, stumbled across it, and climbed crazily out upon the abacus of an adjoining column. He was now above the level of Lucy’s window and his intention was clear. Treading upon a narrow cornice which here ran between the first and second storeys, he proposed to sidle out to a point directly above her. The plan could only be futile, for even were he to succeed in this hazardous scramble he would be hopelessly cut off from the girl by the overhang of the projection upon which he stood.

  So much Appleby saw without pausing to admire; the queer revelation inherent in Sebastian’s unexpected conduct must be matter for future meditation. The great canvas sheet was stretched out taut by willing arms. Lucy eyed it carefully from above, still composed. Appleby gave the word and she jumped, coming down with her full skirt blown about her head, grotesquely like some gay advertisement for the intimacies of feminine attire. For a moment she lay on the sheet, winded and gasping. Then she scrambled off it. ‘Sebastian,’ she panted, ‘quickly–!’