White Priory Murders shm-2

by John Dickson Carr

  There was a long pause. Bennett's cigarette had burned crookedly down one side, and he flung it into the fire.

  He added thoughtfully:

  "I won't call it a conspiracy of the perverse fates, or a choice example of the innate orneriness of human happenings. All I'll say is that in the future I'm going to be very careful when I serve on a jury. Here are two perfectly good and convincing cases, each built out of exactly the same material, each pointing to a different person, and each the only apparent way of explaining an impossible situation. But if in this nightmare of a muddle we get still a third way of explaining it, I'll retire to a padded cell. The case against John collapsed. If the case against Rainger likewise collapses… What do you think?"

  `But that's what I was going to tell you!" she said excitedly. "I got so wrapped up in this that I couldn't. You remember I said I had good news? It hasn't got anything to do with Rainger being guilty or not, it doesn't concern Rainger, but — “

  She whirled round, in hex overwrought state of nerves nearly crying out. Outside in the driveway, under the portecochere, had burst a churning and back-firing of cold motors as the last protesting newspapermen were shooed down towards the highroad before the bellow of Inspector Potter. But that was not what they heard that brought them up highstrung and staring.

  "It sounded” said Katharine, and could not go on.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Silver Triangle

  For a part of that noise there was no name: a rather horrible gobbling sound that might have been a strangled cry, a choke, or even suppressed mirth. You could not tell whether it came from near or far away, but a sort of muffled bump followed it. Bennett felt his skin go hot despite the chill room.

  Motor-gears ground under the porte-cochere, but it was no part of that. He went to the door and threw it open.

  "Was it-?" said Katharine. "Don't go out!"

  The gallery was dark now. He saw it with the same eerie sense of close tragedy growing again.

  "Shouldn't be dark," he said. "There were lights on a moment ago. I had a crazy idea that somebody, you know who, might be standing outside listening to us. So I looked out… What do you mean, don't go out? This is your own home, isn't it? Nothing to be afraid of in your own home."

  No movement, no creaking, in the dense shadow: as though the gallery itself were holding its breath. A window-frame rattled in the rising wind. Somebody had turned those lights out very recently. He had that feeling which sometimes comes to those who sit in old houses with darkness beyond the door: a feeling that the darkness shut him off from human kind, and that he must not venture beyond the light of his own fire lest there should be things he would not like to see. And always, irrationally, his mind would go back to the door of King Charles's Room just across the way. He had been standing here, in this spot, almost in this attitude, when he heard this morning the sound that had brought about his first meeting with Katharine Bohun. This morning, when Louise Carewe in her delirium had tried to strangle…

  It was something like that sound, yet with a different quality. Somebody's words came back to his mind in describing the scene last night when X had tried to push Marcia Tait down the steep dangerous staircase of King Charles's Room: "A sound like a giggle," when the candle went out. You had only to think of the insensate fury with which the murderer had smashed in Marcia Tait's skull to walk warily when unexpected darkness came. For there grew on him an irrational conviction that the murderer was prowling now. Who was it? Who…?

  He stepped across the gallery, touched the door of the King's Room, and almost jumped out of a crawling skin when heavy footsteps creaked far down the gallery.

  "Who's been turnin' all the lights out?" sounded H. M.'s reassuring growl. "Man can't see the edge of his glasses in front of his, face. Hey! See if you can find a switch, Masters."

  Something clicked, and a dull glow sprang up. H. M. and the chief inspector stopped as they saw him.

  "Hullo!" said H. M. He lumbered down and blinked sourly on his nephew. "What's the matter with you, hey? Burn me, you got a funny look on your face!" He craned his neck round and saw Katharine in the doorway. "You and the little gal playin' games? Evenin', Miss."

  "Did you hear anything?"

  "Hear anything? You got the wind up, son. I've been hearin' queer noises all day, and most of 'em come from my own head. I'm tired and I want a large brandy and nobody under the Almighty's canopy could get me into tails tonight even if I had 'em along. But there's something I've got to do. "

  "We'll see," said Bennett. He opened the door of the room, reached quickly round to switch on the lights, and braced himself as he stepped inside.

  Nothing. King Charles's Room, John Bohun's room, lay heavy and swept clean now: the clothes put away, the gray carpet significantly scrubbed at one spot near the big center table. The heavy black velvet draperies were drawn back from the windows, and moved slightly in a strong draught.

  "Thanks. No bogies? That's where I was goin'," volunteered H. M. "I got to see something, and I want to issue a couple of orders if I see what I think I will. Masters here has been holdin' out on me. Why don't you tell me about all the evidence? You find John Bohun with a bullet in his chest and a funny-lookin' little piece of silver held tight in his hand; but nobody bothers to tell me about that piece of silver. Where'd you put it, Masters?"

  Masters shifted from one foot to the other. He had his hat and overcoat on, and was presumably on his way back to Inspector Potter's for a much belated tea.

  "But we don't know it's important, sir!" he protested. "Some keepsake, perhaps. He'd got nothing to do with the murder, and it wasn't likely he'd be holding in his hand a clue to something he didn't do-especially as he'd just written a suicide note saying he didn't do it. It had some sentimental value, probably. I put it in the drawer of the table."

  "Sentimental value, hey? Well, we'll find out. Mind comin' in, Miss Bohun? Shut the door, Jimmy my boy."

  H. M. pulled out a large oak chair and lowered himself into it. He pulled open the drawer of the table.

  Now, as any poker-player at the Diogenes Club could have told him, Bennett had discovered that any attempt to read H. M.'s thoughts was a highly unprofitable occupation. His face retained the same massively dull expression. From the table drawer he fished the same small triangular bit of silver, with its curious scrollwork, which Bennett had last seen when Masters held it out for inspection that morning. H. M. did not scowl or start or give any sign. But there was a perceptible pause before he spoke, as though he had heard rather than seen something.

  He weighed the silver in his hand.

  "Humph. No. Looks as though it's busted off something. This mean anything to you, Miss Bohun? Anything of sentimental value, that he'd be likely to want in his hand when he took the Interestin' Step? Now, now, don't worry; I know he's goin' to be all right."

  She shook her head. "N — no. I never saw it before." There was a clink as H. M. dropped the bit of silver back into the drawer.

  "I'll tell you what, Masters. I'm goin' up to London tomorrow mornin'. I know a silversmith, feller I did a good turn for once, lives in a funny shop back of Lincoln's Inn Fields. He'll tell me what this thing is in a second. I'll pick it up tomorrow and take it to show him. That is — if it's necessary. May be, may not be. Depends. I was thinkin' of somethin' else." He hauled out his watch and blinked at it. "It is now seven o'clock. We're goin' to dine at half-past… Miss Bohun, what time was it last night when you went on your sight-seein' tour by moonlight, and you came to this room, and somebody tried to shove La Tait down those stairs over there?"

  "Close to eleven o'clock, as I remember it."

  "Oh, make it earlier," said H. M. in a plaintive tone. "Burn me, I got to get some sleep! I'd like to stick to the poetic rules, but I got to think of my constitution. Say-well, all right. Eleven o'clock it is. It'll give Masters time to eat and take a nap before he comes back. And a little after eleven it's just possible I may be able to introduce you to the murderer�
� We're goin' to have another moonlight tour of this room. We're goin' to reproduce the scene of the attempted pushin' down the stairs. I've got high hopes of my little playlet."

  Masters, who had been shifting meditatively from one foot to the other, stiffened. H. M. had spoken so casually that it was a second before they reaized the meaning of his words.

  "Is this another joke, sir?" said the Chief Inspector quickly. "Or do you really mean-'

  "Sure I mean it."

  "And the person who finally killed Miss Tait is one of that group of five who went with her to look at the staircase last night?"

  "Uh-huh. That's what I mean."

  Bennett, who was enumerating the group in his own mind with a greater sense of uneasiness than he had yet felt, looked round at Katharine. She made a gesture as though to protest. They all jumped a little as the last of the newspaper-men's cars ground into gear with a protesting squawk, and Inspector Potter's parting bellow sounded from the drive below. H. M., who was scowlingly tapping one finger against the end of his nose, seemed to be struck with an idea. He got up and lumbered to the far window in the side wall, which overlooked the end of the porte-cochere. A blast of freezing air rattled papers on the table as H. M. unlocked the leaves of the window and pushed them open.

  "Hey!" said H. M.

  Inspector Potter appeared dimly in the driveway below.

  "We're up in the show-room. Hop into the house, will you, son, and get that feller Thompson? Send him up here fast. I've just thought of somethin'. Thanks."

  The window closed with a bang. Masters said:

  "But look here, sir, let's get back to the subject! I don't understand this at all. You suddenly and calmly say that you expect to show us the murderer at eleven o'clock. And that you'll do it by reproducing that attempt to shove Miss Tait down the steps..:'

  "That's right."

  "I'm not going to question your ideas. I'd be the first to admit, sir, that they've been pretty good ones in the past. But what sort of spectacular stunt have you got in your mind, and what good will it do? You can't expect the murderer to obligingly up and shove somebody else, can you? And it's no good trying to catch anybody out in a lie about how he or she was standing out there; I've questioned them all, and they were so confused with only the one candle burning that nobody remembers where anybody else was. Well, then! What else-?"

  Masters stopped. His dubious gaze wandered over to the big narrow door of the staircase, with its iron binding and long iron bolt above a big disused keyhole. H. M., who watched him out of those small shrewd uncanny eyes, was imbued with a sort of wooden mirth.

  "Ho ho. I know what you're thinkin'!" he volunteered. "Masters, you got a mind that just naturally runs to melodrama. I must 'uv read a dozen stories like that, and they were funnier than watchin' somebody sit on a silk hat. I know, I know… We dress up somebody like Tait; say Miss Bohun here. We put her at the bottom of the stairs. Lights are turned out; group of people assembles on landing; light of candle is held up; mysterious ghostly figure is seen returned from her gibberin' grave. Ghostly figure lifts her arm and points upstairs, intonin' in a tomb-like voice, 'You done it!' Conscience-stricken murderer instantly screams and collapses. Burn me, Masters, but wouldn't police work be a bed of soft rose-petals if the whole business were as easy as that?"

  He meditated, ruffling his hands across his head.

  "That's a funny thing, too, Masters. In nine cases out of ten the murderer would only look bored and tell us to take off our false whiskers… But I can't help feelin' that this is the tenth case; and that — we really would give X one hell of a shock if we worked a fungus-grown trick like that. It's the imagination that counts: the imagination workin' on a person of this particular type. Brains don't count. Besides, X has plenty of brain right enough, but it didn't help greatly in committing the murder. I said before, and I say again, that the real beauty of it lay in the luckiest accident that ever answered a murderer's prayer..”.

  "But we're not workin' any stale tricks like that, because it'll do no good to scare him if we can't prove anything. I got other ideas. I was just sittin' and thinkin', and all of a sudden I got an idea that'll hang X higher than Judas if it works. If, if, if! I dunno that it will. Burn me, Masters, it worries me..:'

  "I suppose, sir," the Chief Inspector growled. "it's no good asking you-'

  "No. Except for instructions. I want Potter and a couple of men here, placed where I'll tell you; and it won't do any harm to have 'em armed. Then I'm expectin' an answer to a telegram, and I've got to have that or I may look foolish. Above all, I've got to ask that feller Thompson a question that's just about the most important thing in my whole case. Assemblin' my five characters on the landing of that staircase, with me playin' the part of Marcia Tait to make it six, won't mean a blasted thing and it'll all be wasted effort if I get the wrong answer."

  "From Thompson?" demanded Masters. "A question about what?"

  "About his tooth," said H. M.

  "All right!" snapped Masters grimly, after a silence. "I know this mood, and I know you're serious no matter how you sound. We'll do what you say. But there's one thing I've got to get straight and understood, and at least you can tell me that. This story of Maurice Bohun's about Rainger committing the murder — do you believe it, or don't you? You've scouted every other suggestion, but you didn't shout him down when he spoke. Is he right? The thing's got me fair insane, sir; and I swear I don't know the truth of it.

  "I do," said Katharine.

  Her voice fell with quiet assurance into the cold room. She stood just in front of the table, her fingers touching it lightly. The light of the electric candles gleamed on the dark hair; her breast rose and fell rapidly under the old tweed coat, but it was the only sign of nervousness.

  "You insist," she said, "on going through with this — this scheme of yours for tonight, whatever it is?"

  "Well, now!" said H. M. He shifted. One hand shaded his eyes. "I think we'd better, somehow. You don't mind, do you?"

  "No. But before you start you can rule out one person. Maybe two."

  "That's interestin'. Why, Miss Bohun?"

  "Just before you came in here, I heard all about Uncle Maurice's theory. I heard every bit of it. Oh, it's clever. It sounds like him. I don't know whether that man Rainger committed the murder. But I do know that the whole case against him, so far as I can see it, is built up on one person. Without that one person, it may not mean that the case goes to smash. "

  "You mean-'

  "Louise." She brought her fingers down sharply on the table. Then she began to speak more rapidly. "That Louise went to the pavilion. That afterwards there really wasn't anybody walking in the gallery; who smeared blood on her wrist, and that she invented it all… Now I'll tell you. I heard it all from Dr. Wynne, and he'll swear to it. This morning, after he'd examined Louise, he took Jervis Willard out in the gallery and was going to tell him something. That was when they heard the shot. " Her eyes darted to the scrubbed space on the gray carpet; and she could not continue. "That was when they heard it. And Dr. Wynne was so busy taking care of John that he didn't mention it again then.

  "But it's this. Some time late last night, he says Louise must have taken a terrific overdose of some sleeping-drug like veronal. You may be able to guess why. Well, she took so much that it had exactly the opposite effect: that is, it kept her mind awake and wild, but it partly paralyzed her body. She might have had the idea of going down to that pavilion; she might get hallucinations and even try to go. That may have been where she was going when she collapsed outside my room. But Dr. Wynne is willing to swear after his examination that she took the drug not later than one o'clock, and that for the next four or five hours it would have been absolutely impossible to have walked more than twenty or thirty feet from her own room. It simply couldn't have been done. The farthest she could get was where she did get. She bumped into this person in the dark because she was stumbling all over the gallery; and there was a person, and she didn't imagine it
, and, finally, it proves you can't possibly accuse her of murder."

  Masters, who had got out his notebook, lowered it to the table and swore. He stared at H. M. "Is that possible, sir?"

  "Uh-huh. Quite possible. Depends on the dose, and depends on the person even more. Bit reckless to speculate without knowin' a patient's nerve status, but let Wynne have his way. He may be right, he may be wrong. I rather imagine he's wrong, but suit yourself." A sluggish grin crept over H. M.'s face. "Well, Masters?"

  "You mean, sir, that you believe in Mr. Bohun's explanation?"

  H. M. shifted uncomfortably.

  "Look here, Masters, I don't want to mix you up any more than's necessary for a very definite purpose. This business is black enough, and tangled enough, as it is. All I can tell you is that I'm not wavin' my hands over the crystal and makin' mysterious noises out of pure cussedness. But there's somethin' you can see for yourself. Miss Bohun's right about one thing. If you accept the hypothesis that Rainger is guilty, then you can't take only the parts of it that appeal to you: you've got to accept all of it or none of it. And the keystone arch of that theory is the girl who says somebody smeared her wrist with blood. If you believe that prowler-in-thegallery was a myth, all right. But, if you believe he was a real person, then you've got to discard the theory of Rainger's guilt. Because why? Because it would be too staggerin' and monstrous a coincidence to imagine two people with bloodstained hands wanderin' about these grounds. And, at the time that girl says she bumped into her man in this house, by the very basis of Maurice Bohun's theory Rainger must have been at the pavilion. He never left the pavilion until he walked back in John's tracks. Right you are, then. Either the prowler-in-the-gallery is a myth, or else he ain't. But if he ain't a myth, then you've shaken the theory and done some towards establishin' Rainger's innocence."