The Plague Court Murders

by John Dickson Carr

  Somehow, as my eyes fell on this sentence, I found myself nodding as though in confirmation, and saying, “Yes!” and being positive that I remembered seeing the Order—which was bordered in black, and posted outside a tavern with people muttering about it.

  And, seeing this, my father would have hastened on, but that Louis called to him, and he was laughing and saying—How now, brother, but are ye afeared of me? And the cat was still writhing, So that he trod on its neck, and came stepping through the filth of the alley, all lean and bespattered, with his hat flopping against the muddy yellow sky behind. When my father asked him if he did not fear, he replied that he had a philtre, gained of a potent necromancer at Southward, which kept him immune.

  Though indeed there were many with philtres, and plague-waters, and amulets (so that quacks grew rich), yet it did not save them, and they were put into the dead-cart with the amulets still round their necks. But it seemeth that his charm was of the Devil, forasmuch as through all those crazed days he had his safety, and grew crazed with what he dared do among the dead and dying. These things I will not repeat, save only to tell your Lordship that he grew to a thing shunned like the plague itself, nor would any tippling-house take him in.

  Him, however, my father forgot, for on the 21st August Master Owen—your Lordship’s father—fell ill as he was rising from dinner.

  Nor was Sir Richard behind-hand with taking action. He desired Master Owen to be conveyed to the stone house, that others might not be infected. Here a bed was caused to be made of Sir Richard’s finest tapestries, and he lay moaning among the lacquer cabinets, and the hard gold and silver, and Sir Richard was as one demented. It was agreed (though this against the ORDER) that no report should be made to the council; that Sir Richard and my father should attend him, and a chirurgeon sent for under oath of secrecy.

  Throughout that month, I say, they watched. (It was a few days afterwards, I think, that Sir Richard’s wife was delivered of a stillborn son.) Dr. Hodges waited daily on Master Owen, as he lay there with his shaven head, and let blood and administered clysters; and held him up in his bed to prevent choking, an hour at a time. And it was in the most terrible time of the Visitation, the week of the 1st September, that Dr. Hodges told us the turn was past, and he would grow well.

  That night Sir Richard, and his lady near death herself, and their daughter, wept for joy. We knelt and gave thanks to GOD.

  On the night of the 6th September my father roused himself at midnight, and went out to take night watch at Master Owen’s side. He carried a flaring link in his hand, and when he did start across the yard, then he saw a man on his knees before the house, who was pawing at the door.

  And Sir Richard, who was inside, thought it to be my father, so that he came to open the door. But the man staggered up and turned round, and my father saw that it was Louis Playge. And he saw that Louis Playge was moving his neck curiously. He held up the light, and perceived that this was because a great plague-sore had blossomed on his throat; and even as he watched, other sores began to swell on his face. Whereat Louis Playge began to scream and cry.

  ’Twas then that Sir Richard opened the door, asking what the matter was. Nor did Louis Playge speak, but only made a dart to go in at the door; but my father thrust the flaming link into his face as I have seen done with wild animals. Whereupon he tumbled down and rolled, crying— For Christ’s sake, brother, will ye turn me out to die? Sir Richard stood horror-struck, not being able to shut the door. And cries my father—Get to the pesthouse, or he would set set fire to his clothes and burn the plague out of him. But Louis Playge said they would not have him, that they cursed and reviled him, and no man would look on his face, and he must die in a gutter. When my father would not let him, of a sudden he gathers himself together, and drawing his dagger leaps at the door a-slashing; the which Sir Richard closed in bare time.

  Then my father’s brother ran about the yard, so that my father was compelled to bespeak aid; and half-a-dozen fellows with torches pursued him to drive him out, a-jabbing the torches while he ran screaming before them. Presently they heard him no more, and came on him fallen dead under a tree.

  There they buried him, seven full feet beneath the tree, because had they given him to the dead-cart; then they would have acknowledged the plague in their house and been guarded by watchmen; nor did they dare cast him into the street, because of who might see and report. Yet my father heard him say before he died, crying out in the yard, that he would come back, and find a way in, and butcher who should be in the house as he butchered cats; and, if he were not strong enough, he would take the body of an inmate or him who owned the house. …

  Master Owen heard him (or his shape) even that same night, clinging to the door like a great flattened bat, and trying to force the door with his awl.

  Therefore, my Lord, since it hath pleased you to ask me for this account of horror and suffering. …

  Something drew my eyes off the page, and to this day I do not know what it was. The evil images were so entangled with this room that I felt not here, but in the seventeenth century. Yet I found myself standing up, staring about the place. …

  There were footsteps in the yard. There was a creak and scrape outside in the passage.

  And then, harsh and sudden as though at a dying jerk, the bell in the passage began to ring.

  CHAPTER VI

  That introduced it. And, since the ringing of that bell began one of the most astounding and baffling murder cases of modern times, it is as well to be very careful of what I say; not to exaggerate or mislead—at least, any more than we were misled—so that you may have a fair opportunity to put your wits to work on a puzzle apparently impossible of solution.

  First, then, the bell did not clang out strongly. In the stiffness of its rust and disuse, that would have been impossible even with a heavy hand pulling the wire. It creaked, and jarred down with a low reverberation; creaked again more weakly, and the clapper fell in little more than a whisper. But to me it was more horrible than though it had banged a sharp alarm through the house. I got up, with a faint sickness in the pit of my stomach, and hurried to the door into the passage.

  A light flashed in my face, and the beam of my own lamp crossed that of Masters. He was standing in the door to the yard, looking back over his shoulder at me, and he was pale. He said hoarsely:

  “Follow me out, and close behind. … Wait!” The voice grew to a bellow as hurrying steps and the gleam of candles plunged towards us from the throat of the passage behind. First came stalking Major Featherton, paunchy and rather wild-eyed, with Halliday and Marion Latimer behind him. McDonnell elbowed past them, holding firmly to the arm of the red-headed Joseph.

  “I demand to know—” roared the major.

  “Stand back,” said Masters. “Stand back, all of you. Stay where you are, and don’t move till I give the word. No, I don’t know what’s happened! Round ’em all up, Bert. … Come along,” he said to me.

  We slipped down the three steps into the yard and cast our lights out across it. The rain had stopped some time ago; the yard was a thick sea of mud, undulating in places, but sloping a trifle towards where we stood, so that it was almost drained of puddles.

  “There isn’t a footmark,” snapped Masters, “going near that stone house on this side. Look at it! Besides, I’ve been here. Come on, and keep in my tracks. …”

  Slogging out across the yard, we examined the unbroken mud in front of us. Masters cried, “You in there! Darworth! Open the door, will you?” and there was no reply. The light flickered much lower against the windows. The last few steps we ran at the door. It was a low door, but immensely heavy: built of thick oak boards bound in rusty iron, with a broken handle. And it was fastened now by a new hasp and padlock.

  “I’d forgotten that damned padlock,” Masters breathed, wrenching it. He threw his shoulder on the door, to no effect. “Bert! Ahoy there, Bert! Get the key to this lock from whoever’s got it and bring it out!… Come on, sir. The windows.
… There we are, where the bell-wire runs in: ought to be that box, or whatever it was, that young Latimer stood on when he ran the wire in.—No? By God, it isn’t here! Let’s see …” We had hurried round to the side of the house, keeping close in against the wall, and making sure that there were no footprints ahead of us. There was the window to which the wire ran, a foot square and about twelve feet above the ground. The roof, which was low-pitched and built of heavy rounded tiles, did not overhang the wall.

  “No way to climb,” snarled Masters. The man was upset, and breathing hard; also, he was dangerous. “That must have been a devil of a big box young Latimer stood on, to climb up there. Give me a leg up, will you? I’m pretty heavy, but I’ll not be long. …”

  It took a strain to support that weight. I braced my back against the stone wall, knitting my fingers to give him a stirrup. My shoulder-bones seemed to go out of joint as the weight pulled them; we staggered and grunted a moment, and then Masters steadied us with his fingers on the windowledge.

  There was a silence. …

  With that muddy boot cutting into my fingers, I bucked and braced on the wall for what seemed like five minutes. By craning my neck I could see a part of Masters’ face from below; the flickering light was on it, and touched his staring eyeballs. …

  “All right,” Masters grunted, vaguely,

  I gasped and let him slide down. He stumbled in the mud; and, when he spoke, after gripping my arm and rubbing his sleeve insistently across his face, it was in a gruff, steady, unhurried voice.

  “Well … that’s done it, sir. I don’t think I ever saw so much blood.”

  “You mean he’s—?”

  “Oh, yes, he’s dead. Stretched out in there. He-looks—pretty well cut and hacked. Not pretty. Louis Playge’s dagger is there too. But there’s nobody else in the place; I could see all of it.”

  “But, man,” I said, “nobody could have—”

  “Ah, just so. Just so. Nobody could have.” He nodded, dully. “I don’t think the key to that padlock will be of much use now. I could see the inside of the door. It’s bolted, and there’s a big bar across it too. … It’s a trick, I tell you! It’s got to be a trick, somehow! Bert! Where the hell are you, Bert?”

  Lights crossed again as McDonnell stumbled round the side of the house. And McDonnell was afraid: I saw that in the glaze of his greenish eyes, shutting up as the light struck them, and the twitch of his narrow face. There was a wild contrast in the rakishness of his hat, which was pulled over one eye with a sort of sodden jauntiness. He said: “Here, sir. Young Latimer had the key. Here it is. Has anything—?” He swept out his hand.

  “Give it to me. We’ll try. … What the devil have you got in your other hand?”

  McDonnell blinked, stared, and then looked down. “Why—Nothing, sir. They’re cards—playing cards, you know.” He exposed a handful, in one of those movements of conscious grotesqueness suited to what he carried in that place. “It was the medium. You said to keep an eye on him when you were out. And he wanted to play Rummy—”

  “To play Rummy?”

  “Yes, sir. I think he’s dotty, sir; clean off his head. But he got out the cards, and—”

  “Did you let him get out of your sight?”

  “No, sir; I did not.” McDonnell thrust out his jaw; his eyes were level and positive for the first time. “I’ll swear I didn’t”

  Masters snapped something and took the key out of his hand; but it did no good to open the padlock on the door. The three of us hurled our shoulders at the door together without even shaking it.

  “No good,” Masters panted. “Axes: that’s what we need. Only thing’ll do it. Yes, yes, he’s dead, Bert!—don’t keep asking fool questions! I know a corpse when I see one. But we’ve got to get in there. Nip back to the house, and look in that room where there’s some wood piled; see if you can find a fair-sized log. We’ll use if for a battering-ram, and maybe the wood’s rotten enough to smash. Hop it, now.” Masters was sharp and practical now, though a trifle short of breath. He played his light round the yard. “No footprints anywhere near this door—no footprints anywhere. That’s what sticks me. Besides, I was here, I was watching. …”

  “What happened?” I demanded. “I was reading that manuscript. …”

  “Eh, ah. Just so. Do you know how long you were at it—a-mooning, sir?” He did not sound pleasant. Then he hauled out a notebook. “Reminds me. I’d better put that down. Noted the time when I heard the bell. Time: 1:15 exactly. ‘Heard bell, one-fifteen.’ Ha. Now, sir, you were sitting there a-mooning that long, maybe you found something out. That’s near on three quarters of an hour.”

  “Masters,” I said, “I didn’t see or hear anything. Unless … you say you were out at the back. Did you pass the door of the room where I was sitting when you went out?”

  He was twisted round, his torch propped under one arm with its beam focused on the notebook. His muddy fingers stopped writing.

  “Ah! Passed your door, eh? When was that?”

  “I don’t know. While I was reading. I had such a strong feeling of it that I got up and looked out the door, but I didn’t see anybody.”

  “Haaa—!” said the inspector, rather ghoulishly. “Wait a bit, though. Is that facts—you know what I mean: hard, absolute, really ’appened facts, that no counsel could shake—or is it only more impressions? You’ll admit you’ve had a lot of those impressions, you know.”

  I told him it was a hard, absolute, really ’appened fact, and he smeared the notebook again.

  “Because, Mr. Blake, it wasn’t me. I came out the front door and round the side of the house: as you’ll hear. Now, can you give any description of those steps, say. Man or woman, eh? Kind of walk—fast or slow; something that’d be helpful?”

  This was impossible. It was a brick floor, and the sounds had been only half-heard in the midst of cryings and shadows built up from George Playge’s manuscript. That they were quick footsteps, as of one anxious to escape being seen, was all I could tell him.

  “Well, sir, then here’s what happened after Bert and I left you. … I’d better get it down on paper. They’ll be asking … and I shall catch hell for all this. Down on paper. … Do you know what that crowd was doing, what they’ve been doing for the last half-hour?” Masters demanded bitterly. “Yes, you’ve guessed it. Round a circle in the dark. Exactly as they were a week ago tonight, when somebody slipped that fake message among the papers and scared Darworth. How could I prevent ’em?”

  “A séance—” I said. “Yes, but what about Joseph?”

  “It wasn’t a séance. They were praying. And there, if you look at it, is the fishy part of the whole thing. They didn’t want Joseph there. The old lady was a bit heated about it. She said Darworth had given specific instructions-that Joseph was not to be present: some sort of bosh about his being a strong psychic, which would only tend to gather bad influences rather than … I don’t know. But McDonnell and I took him in hand instead. Ha. Little enough we got out of him, or them either, for that matter. They wouldn’t talk.”

  “Did you tell them you were a police officer?”

  Masters made a sound through his nostrils. “Yes. And it only made a mug of me. What right had I to do anything?” He brooded. “The old lady only opened and shut her hands, and said, ‘I thought so.’ I thought the young fellow—Latimer—was going to come after me with a poker. Only one who tried pacifying me was the old-gentleman. Ah, and they ordered me out of their prayer-meeting, too. If it hadn’t been for Mr. Halliday I should have been chucked out altogether. … Here we come. Bert!” he shouted towards the house. “Get Mr. Halliday with you on that log, and keep the rest back. Make ’em get back, d’ye hear?”

  There was a shrilling of protest, mingled with the sound of argument, at the back door. Trundling a heavy log, McDonnell bumped it down the steps against the uncertain gleam of candles that others were holding high. Halliday picked up the other end of the log, and they stumbled out towards us.
/>   “Well?” Halliday demanded. “Well? McDonnell says—”

  Masters interrupted: “He says nothing, sir. Catch hold here; two of us each side. Aim for the center of the door, and we’ll try to split it in half. Torches in your pockets; use both hands. Ready, when I give the word … now!”

  The noise of the separate crashes blasted in that enclosed space, and seemed to make windows tingle roundabout. Four times we drove that ram at the door, slipping in the muck, drawing back, and plunging again at Masters’ word. You could feel it cracking, but the old iron snapped before the wood. A fifth time, and Masters’ light was playing on two halves splintered cleanly down.

  Breathing hard, Masters drew on a pair of gloves, lifted one sagging flap, and slid through it on his knees. I followed him. Across the center of the door, a large iron bar was still wedged into its socket. As I ducked under it, Masters turned his light round to the back of the door. Not only was the bar still in place, but a long and rusty iron bolt, of the type common in seventeenth-century houses, was shot into place. When Masters tested it with his gloved hand, a stiff wrench of the wrist was required to draw it out. The door had no lock or keyhole: only a dummy handle of the type nailed on outside. So closely did it fit the door-frame all around that the brittle iron binding had been crushed and ripped out.

  “Take note,” said Masters, gruffly; “and now stand where you are—turn round—be sure there’s nobody here. …”

  I whirled round quickly; for I had glimpsed fragments of the sight as I crawled inside, and it was not one for a weak stomach. The air was foul, for the chimney could not have drawn well, and Darworth had evidently been burning spices in the immense fire. Then, too, there was an odor of singeing hair.

  In the wall towards our left (the same narrow side of the oblong through whose window Masters had seen the body), in this wall was the fireplace. The fire had sunk lower now, but it was heaped into a red-glowing mass that threw out fierce heat. It still winked invitingly, and it looked demoniac. A man was lying in front of it, his head almost among the embers.