White Priory Murders shm-2

by John Dickson Carr

  "You think," said Willard, stumbling. "You can-?"

  "How the devil should I know yet? Shut up. Something to carry him in? Can't jolt him. Eh? — Dead-wagon? Why not? Best thing of all, if it's here."

  "Hop it, Potter," said Masters. "Get the van up here, — and a stretcher. Tell 'em it's my orders. Never mind the dead 'un. Don't stand there goggling; hop it!"

  There were four windows in the room: two in the left-hand wall by the panelled door to the staircase, and two in the rear wall looking down over the lawns. Their crooked panes made lattices of shadow across a big table and chair beside which John Bohun lay; a draught swooped between their loose fittings and the door, and papers flew from the table. One of them rustled free as though with an ugly life of its own and twisted along the floor towards the door. Bennett, staring at a discarded stiff shirt hanging across a chair, mechanically set his foot on the paper.

  He remembered now John Bohun's expression, and the last words he had said before he left the group in the dininghall. They should have known it. It was in the air. But why those words, "No matter what I try to prove, I'm caught out in something or other. I'm bound to be hanged for something." Why the suspicious behavior, the behavior that would have put a halter about any man's neck; why the manifest terror with regard to Marcia, when he could be proved innocent of…? The man with a bullet in his chest suddenly moaned and twisted. Bennett glanced down. His glance met the paper under his foot, moved away, and swiftly came back. The uneasy handwriting, with the long slopes and scrawls of a drunken man, staggered along a first line.

  "Sorry to mess up the house. Please forgive me, but I've got to do this. You might as well know now that I killed Canifest”

  At first Bennett's stunned wits refused to take in the sense of this. He could think of nothing but that it might be a slip. Then the implications behind came on him like a light that was too bright, so that for a second he could not fit together all the cloudy puzzles it explained. He bent down and with an unsteady hand picked up the sheet of notepaper.

  `that I killed Canifest. I didn't mean to do it. All my life I've been trying to explain to people and myself that I didn't mean to do what I've done, and I'm sick of it; but I wouldn't have struck him if I'd known about the heart. I only followed him home to argue with him."

  Pictures of John Bohun flashed through his mind, of behavior and attitudes and mirth: his careful insistence that he had seen Canifest early in the evening, and yet his very late arrival at the White Priory…

  "But I swear I didn't kill Marcia, or anything to do with it, and it's only a horrible accident you came to think so. I don't know who killed her. What difference does it make now? When she's gone, there's no reason for me to stay. God bless you and keep you, Kate. Cheerho old girl."

  The signature, "John Ashley Bohun," was clear and firmwritten.

  There was a pungent medicinal smell in the room now. Masters was focussing a flashlight down, and Bennett heard the snip of scissors and the rapid clinking from Dr. Wynne's black satchel. That draught had blown the powder-smoke away. Bennett beckoned fiercely to Masters, holding up the sheet of notepaper. The chief inspector nodded. He gestured towards Willard, who stepped over swiftly, with no more than a quick curious glance in Bennett's direction, and took the flashlight.

  "Water," said Dr. Wynne. "Luke-warm. Get it, somebody. None here. Where the hell's that stretcher? I can't extract the bullet here. Get his head up a little; one hand'll do it. Steady…"

  Masters came over, looking rather wild-eyed. Bennett thrust the sheet of paper into his hands and hurried out after water. The door of his own room was open just across the way. He went in, got the washbowl, and overturned a little sheaf of colored matches. Katharine Bohun was waiting just where he had left her. She seemed more quiet now, although her hands were clenched together.

  "He didn't — quite," said — Bennett, hoping he was telling the truth. "They think they can pull him through. Warm water: where's the bathroom?"

  She only nodded, and opened a door just behind her. There was an ancient top-heavy geyser-bath in the dingy oilcloth room. With steady fingers she struck a match; the gas lit up with a hollow whoom, and little yellow-blue flames under the tank flickered on her face as she took the bowl. "Towels," she said. "You'll want those. Sorry to be such a little fool. I'll come back with you. But. "

  "Stay here. They'll be bringing him out in a minute. Easier not to watch that."

  They exchanged a glance, and suddenly she said a queer irrelevant thing. She said: "I might be a murderer, you know."

  When he went back to the other room Masters was standing motionless, the note half crumpled-up in his hand. He took the bowl of water over, and held it steadily at Dr. Wynne's direction. "They'll pull him through." Did he hope that? Better for him to die. Better that the nervous, restless, tortured man now beginning to twist and gasp on the floor should go out under Dr. Wynne's fingers than live to step into a dock for the murder of Lord Canifest. He would be cleanly dead, and blessed or damned, before the law could go fumbling with its greasy rope and splashing mud on names. Bennett tried to imagine what had happened last night "I followed him home to argue with him" — after Bohun had seen Canifest at the newspaper office. But all he could see was the water turning slowly red in the washbowl.

  When at last he was instructed to put it down, he heard Masters' voice.

  "That's it, then," said the chief inspector heavily. "That's why. But how could we be expected to know? He came up here, got that revolver out of the drawer there," Masters pointed; "and sat down. It took him a long time to write that note. Look at the long and short spaces between the sentences. I suppose this is his writing?" Masters rubbed his forehead. "Well. Then what did he mean by this? He had it in one hand-used two hands to put the gun against his chest and it fell out when we picked him up."

  He extended in his palm what resembled a small triangular piece of silver, cracked along one side as though it had been broken off. Masters held it out briefly, and then clenched his fist.

  "May I ask," said a thin cool voice just behind Masters, "whether there is any hope?"

  "I don't know, sir."

  "Whether it was a pity or not," said Maurice Bohun — in just that voice of sane, unanswerable common-sense which at certain wrong times and places can be the most infuriating — "whether it was a pity or not, I fancy, depends on what he wrote in that note I observed you reading. May I ask its contents?"

  "I'll ask you, sir," said Masters, heavily but just as quietly, "to look at this note and tell me if it's your brother's handwriting. I'd also like to ask, Is that all this thing means to you?'

  "I detest stupidity," Maurice pointed out. He gave each syllable its complete emphasis, — but a little network of veins showed in his forehead. "And I fear he was always a fool. Yes, this is his writing. Now, then…”

  "So he killed Canifest? Then it is to be hoped that he will not live. If he does, he will hang." Maurice snapped the note back to Masters just as he snapped out the last word.

  As though taking up the sound, a babble of voices sounded downstairs; and the clumping of heavy footfalls. Dr. Wynne got up with an exclamation, and Bennett hurried out into the gallery. He looked round for Katharine, but she had gone: a thing he noticed with an inexplicable sense of shock and uneasiness. Downstairs, as though echoing in his mind a summons to find her, a telephone-bell was ringing shrilly. The hall was full of alien figures as the stretcher was brought along, and still the telephone bell kept on shrilling.

  "I do not know," said Maurice's voice, "what is delaying Thompson. He has orders, most definite orders, that a telephone is in this house for the purpose of being answered immediately, if at all. - You spoke, inspector?"

  "I want to know, if you don't mind, where you and all the others were when you heard the shot?"

  Maurice moved out into the hall to let two uniformed figures pass. Then he turned. "Surely-ah-it cannot have occurred even to your mind, inspector," he inquired, "that this is another
murder? It really is not. I myself was first on the scene of the unfortunate business. I had rather feared something of the sort, and I was curious to speak to my brother and understand the kinks that had grown into his mind."

  There was a shuffling inside the room.

  "Easy, boys," barked Dr. Wynne's voice; "take him easy.

  Through Bennett's brain went the words scribbled on the paper: "God bless you and keep you, Kate. Cheer-ho, old girl." Behind a blue-uniformed figure showed now a brown leather boot.

  "It is another murder, I think," said Maurice, staring at the body, "that you need to concern yourself with. Lord Canifest… Yes, Thompson? Yes? What is it?"

  For a second Thompson, who had almost run along the gallery, could not keep his eyes off the figure on the stretcher. His face was wrinkled up, and he opened and shut his hands spasmodically. Then, as Maurice's gentle satiric voice flowed smoothly on in asking the same question, he pulled himself together.

  "Yes, sir. It was only… yes, sir. What I wished to tell you, there is a gentleman downstairs asking for Mr. Bennett. It's Sir Henry Merrivale, Mr. Maurice, and — “

  Both Bennett and Masters whipped round. Through the former went suddenly a surge and exultation that was like a shout of triumph..

  "— and another thing, sir…"

  "Yes?"

  Thompson quieted his breathing. His voice was clear when he said:

  "Lord Canifest would like to speak with you on the telephone."

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Hunting Crop

  Although he was now in a state of being able to believe almost anything, Bennett thought that this last was a trifle too much. The faces looked unreal and masklike. And, in addition, H. M. was here. However he had contrived to get here, his presence was the one thing that lifted a burden and made you feel inexplicably that matters would be all right now. Others besides Bennett had known this feeling. Let the impossibilities go on; that didn't matter. After a space of silence Maurice Bohun moved forward, and Masters laid a heavy hand on his arm.

  "Oh, no," he said. "Better stay just where you are. I'll answer that 'phone."

  Maurice stiffened. He murmured: "If Lord Canifest, inspector, had expressed the slightest desire to speak with

  You — “

  "I said," repeated Masters without inflection, "I'll answer that telephone." He pushed Maurice with an easy motion which almost threw Maurice across the gallery; then Bennett found his own arm seized, and Masters was hurrying him along the hall as though in an arrest. "What I wanted to tell you… come along, Thompson; we'll see Sir Henry. what I wanted to tell you about H. M.," Masters continued in a low heavy voice, "was this. You sent him a telegram."

  "I sent him a telegram?"

  "Now, now; there's no time for argument. It's this way. He was off today for the Christmas holidays. If I'd tried to get in touch with him, he'd only have roared — really roared; not his usual kind that don't mean anything — and refused to have anything to do with it. But he's sentimental about a lot of things, though he'd murder you if you accused him of it; and one thing is Families. You're his nephew. If you were in trouble, he'd be here. Here's how it was. He'd phoned about you last night. When this case broke this morning, I knew it would be the biggest thing that ever happened to me, and the first under my direction after I was promoted. I've got to make a go of it, and it's not my kind of case. So first I came up here to — to see what sort of a young fellow you were." Masters was breathing hard. He was trying to keep his dignity, not very successfully. "You looked like the sort who'd back me up — umwell! If I stretched the truth in the interests of justice. That's it. Justice. So, when you went upstairs after I first saw you… Eh?" prompted Masters, with a pantomime leer.

  Bennett whistled. He said: "I begin to see- You sent him a telegram signed with my name, saying I was in trouble? What kind of trouble am I supposed to be in? Good God, you didn't tell him I was accused of murder, did you?"

  "Ah! No; I couldn't say that, now, could I? Or he'd have found out as soon as he got here. I didn't specify the trouble. At the time I couldn't think of anything. But afterwards, excuse me," Masters peered round, "I saw you looking at Miss Bohun… Well, now! Eh? So I've got somewhat of an explanation; that is, provided.."

  An explanation, then, of the chief inspector's affability towards a stranger; his willingness, beyond all rules, to talk to the stranger about the case; his discretion towards Katharine, and his —.

  "Provided you'll say you want to help her out, that she's worried about all this, and wants help. Eh? Will you back me up?"

  They had reached the top of the broad, low, heavily balustraded stairs. Thompson had gone on ahead down to the landing, where the stairs turned at right angles into the lower hall, and he was holding the receiver of a telephone. From the lower hall ascended now the heavy growl of H. M.'s voice.

  "You don't know, hey?" boomed H. M. "Well, why don't you know? Stand away, there, and gimme a look at him. Ahhh. Um. Yes…"

  "And may I ask, sir," squeaked Dr. Wynne, "who the devil you are and what you mean by this? Do you happen to be a doctor?"

  "H'm. I like the color of that blood. No froth and — no — ahh. Edges. Lemme see, now." A pause. "All right, son, you can take him on. Bullet missed every vital spot. I'll tell you that gratis. You look sharp and you'll bring him round without a mite of trouble. Good thing it wasn't soft-nose. Look for it high up. Humph. What kind of, a house is this, hey? You walk in the door and a goddam stretcher comes downstairs… "

  There was a bitter exchange of remarks, which H. M. shouted down by bellowing, "Phooeyl" Masters grasped Bennett's arm inquiringly.

  "Well?" he insisted.

  "Certainly I'll back you up," said the other. "But you've got to go down and do the pacifying. I'll follow when you've explained everything. He sounds as though he's on the warpath. Look here, Masters is the old boy really so-so-"

  "Valuable at police work?" supplied Masters. "Watch him!"

  Masters hurried down to the landing to take the telephone. receiver. Bennett leaned over the banisters and tried to make out Masters' end of the conversation with Lord Canifest. A Lord Canifest, evidently, who was very much alive. But Masters had the newspaperman's trick of talking almost at a mumble into the side of the telephone, and the listener was no wiser. Hearing footsteps in the gallery behind him, Bennett pulled back and turned with a guilty start. Jervis Willard and Maurice Bohun were looking at him.

  "It would seem," Maurice observed, "that my guests are as strange as my telephone-calls. It is an unexpected honor to receive a visit from Sir Henry Merrivale. It is an even more signal honor to receive a telephone call from a dead man… Exactly what is the latest news in this affair, may I inquire?" Maurice's thin features were impassive, but his voice shook.

  "Good news, sir. I think you may call it pretty certain that your brother will recover."

  "Thank God for that," said Willard. "Why did he do it, Maurice? Why should he?"

  For a second there was almost a deformity of rage in Maurice's face, a pale and rather hideous kind of flame. "My brother has a very curious sort of conscience. I-ah-suppose I may be permitted to see visitors in my own house? Thank you so much. I will go downstairs."

  He twisted his shoulder when he walked. His stick bumped against the balustrade on the way down.

  "What happened?" Bennett asked the actor in a low voice. "I mean about Bohun? Did he just come up here, walk to his room, and.?"

  "So far as I can gather, yes." Willard rubbed his eyes. "I don't exactly know what did happen. The last time I saw him he said he was going to breakfast. I came upstairs, and met Kate Bohun. She asked me whether I'd sit with Miss Carewe in her room while she went down after some coffee. She went somewhere else to dress, and that's the last I saw of her until-well, you all came upstairs. Come over here a minute."

  Peering round, he drew Bennett down an angle of the gallery: a side-passage that led to a big oriel window. Willard was no longer the easy, faintly amused figure
with the assured bearing. He looked old. Again his hand fumbled with his eyes as though he should have glasses.

  "Tell me," he said, "did you summon-assistance Higher Up?"

  "No! I swear I didn't. I only seem to be a kind of dummy they're using for their own purposes… "

  "This Merrivale is your uncle, I understand? Do you know him well?"

  "I met him yesterday for the first time in my life. Why?"

  "Do you think," asked Willard quietly, "a man could lie to him and get away with it?… I'll tell you why I ask. I've been sitting at Louise Carewe's bedside. She's been babbling about murdering Marcia Tait."

  Bennett whirled round. Something strange in Willard's expression caught him like a hypnosis. He tried to think of what that expression reminded him. And then a cloudy memory returned to him, of words that Willard had spoken that morning; words echoing and clanging with dull cynicism. "We poor striped brutes went through the paper hoops and climbed up on the perches, and usually she had only to fire a blank cartridge when we got unruly." Then he knew what it was, at last, that those queer yellow-brown eyes of Willard's reminded him of. It was of something prowling inside a cage.

  "You don't mean," Bennett heard himself saying, "she admitted she-?"

  "I don't know. It was a kind of delirium. I thought, and later found, she'd taken an overdose of some kind of sleeping drug-but I'll tell you about that in a moment. I was sitting there wondering when Dr. Wynne came in. He said you'd mentioned something about her being ill. While he was looking at her I came close to the bed, and my foot kicked something under it: a hunting-crop with a heavy silver end, loaded with lead and shaped like a dog's head…"

  "That's nonsense! It wasn't her room; it was-"

  "Kate's? Yes, I know." Willard regarded him with a flash of curiosity. "But Louise had the thing with her when she screamed in the gallery last night, and I picked her up in a faint. This is what I didn't tell that detective. I — quite frankly — how can I express it, anyway?" He floundered among words, and made a gesture as though to clear them away.