Mr Splitfoot (Dr Basil Willing)

by Helen McCloy

  Gee, thanks a lot! Lucinda scowled in the direction of the stairwell. She thought of sticking out her tongue, but that would be childish. She thought of swearing under her breath, but owing to the ludicrously old-fashioned atmosphere at home and at school her vocabulary was limited. The only words she could think of were hell, damn, bastard and bitch, and that wasn’t swearing. That was the way everybody talked all the time in books. She wasn’t reading the right books. She must ask Vanya to give her a list of the others. . . .

  “. . . so you see no connection between her fainting fit and Crowe’s death?”

  “Not at the moment.” Basil’s answer came slowly, as if he were not quite sure of this opinion. “I must concede that when two inexplicable things happened at about the same time and place, there is likely to be some connection between them, but I can’t see one here. Not yet.”

  “You have no idea why she fainted?”

  “No, you’ll have to ask her when she wakes.”

  “Could it be she was just scared by those rapping noises?”

  “She didn’t look scared up to the moment she fainted. On the contrary, she seemed to be rather enjoying the excitement. If I thought the rappings were a practical joke, she’d be the first I’d suspect.”

  Bastard . . .

  “She didn’t faint until she got that telephone call.”

  “But you don’t think the faint was a fake?”

  “No, that was real. I know, because I examined her. By that time something had frightened her very much indeed.”

  “And you have no idea what caused the rapping noises?”

  There was a pause before the answer came. A pause for consideration. Or just a pause to put out a cigarette? Lucinda had no way of knowing. This was like listening to television when the picture tube was dead.

  “I can’t answer that. I’d just be guessing.”

  “And you really think Crowe may have died from natural causes?”

  “Again that’s just a guess. There was nothing about his body that suggested any other cause to a casual observer—no external wounds, no signs of poisoning or suffocation. Only a post-mortem can answer the question properly. I’d suggest a thorough one.”

  “It’ll be thorough. There’s one question we must answer somehow. Why did he ring that bell three times before he died? He was supposed to ring it only if he was attacked. That bothers me.”

  “It bothers me, too. I dare say Crowe took the ghost story more seriously than he admitted. Most people are ashamed to admit taking such things seriously, but things you learn when you’re very young make as deep an impression on human beings as on animals. It’s what zoologists call ‘imprinting.’ Crowe had grown up with that story. When we left him alone in that so-called haunted room, he may have been wound up to a pretty high pitch. Pulse, respiration, blood pressure—the works.”

  Haunted room? Lucinda’s eyes fled to the closed door at the head of the stairs. Had Crowe died in there? Alone? What was he doing in there?

  “After he’d sat there alone for nearly an hour, he’d be wound up even tighter. If he heard, or thought he heard, some sound . . . If his candle-flame flickered and a shadow moved and he thought he saw more than a shadow moving . . . He’d be likely to ring that bell, especially if he were a little too breathless to cry out. And such panic might be just too much for his heart if there was any cardiac weakness at all.”

  “Were there just three rings? Or was the bell rung several times each time it rang, with a total of three times?”

  “There were three times when it rang. They were distinct, but quite close together. The sound was too blurred to count the rings distinctly each time.”

  “So we don’t really know whether he was trying to follow the signal system or not?”

  “You mean one ring for anything he saw, two for anything that spoke to him, and three for anything that attacked him? No, it would be impossible to say whether he was trying to follow that signal system or not.”

  “Any record of cardiac weakness in his medical history?”

  “You’ll have to ask his doctor, but people can die of heart failure without any record of previous trouble.”

  The sound of a yawn. Lucinda was shocked. Did policemen finally become so used to crime that they could feel sleepy in the middle of an investigation? Even if they’d been up half the night, they had no right to yawn.

  “How about more coffee? Martha has just brought some into the dining room. Hot and fresh.”

  Lucinda was surprised to hear her father’s voice. Why hadn’t he spoken before? Then she realized that Dr. Willing’s work with the district attorney’s office in New York would give him a privileged status anywhere in New York State, while her father was merely a witness or perhaps even a suspect in the eyes of the police. He had probably just come into the room from the dining room as the discussion ended.

  “Hot coffee sounds great.”

  Footfalls receded. Silence flowed into the rooms below, like a quietly rising tide.

  She was sure there was no one there now, but she had the habit of stealth. She tiptoed to the door of the room at the head of the stairs and turned the knob. Locked. What could have happened in there last night?

  On the stairs she trod softly. In the lower hall was a closet under the stairs for outdoor wraps. She found her ski boots, parka and mittens there. Her wool slacks were in her own room upstairs where Mrs. Willing was sleeping, but her flannel pajamas were thick and warm and the parka was a little big for her so it came down well below her hips. She wouldn’t be cold. She zipped up the parka, drew the hood over her head and tied the drawing strings under her chin.

  The living room was cold. She glanced at the hearth. There was a roseate glow at the core of white ashes, yet no one had bothered to put up the fire screen. That showed now upset they must be. Fear of fire is engrained in all who live in lonely woods that can turn to tinder during drought, especially when the house is far from urban water supplies. Automatically she took the poker to break up the embers and extinguish them before putting up the fire screen.

  Yes, under the flaky white ash there was a fairly large chunk of red-hot coal. She paused. Something in the ashes caught her eye.

  The poker was one of those with a point bent at a right angle to the rest of the shaft. That made it easy to hook the tiny object and draw it toward her. She knelt to look at it more closely.

  A thin, flexible strip of metal, bent slightly in the center at a wide angle. There was a small hole near the center that looked as if it might have held a screw there once. Now what could that be?

  She dropped it in the pocket of her parka and went on breaking up the embers. For a moment she looked longingly at the telephone, but no. She didn’t dare. Someone here might overhear what she said. Or Vanya’s mother might answer the call at the other end. Besides, she mustn’t stay in the living room too long. Dr. Willing or her father or the police might come back at any moment and then she would have no freedom of movement.

  At the very thought her heart missed a beat, but, even then, she took time to put up the fire screen in front of the fire before she went to the front door.

  The outdoor air was cold, pure and sweet. Plunging into it was like diving into a mountain lake. She paused at the head of the steps. Footprints in the snow between the house and an empty car in the driveway with the arms of New York State on its door. Tire tracks in the driveway. Footprints on the path to Martha’s quarters in the garage. Everywhere else the snow was a blank page.

  She went down the steps, carefully fitting her feet into the larger footprints already there. Under the steps was a door to a closet for skis and poles. She took out her own skis and sat down on the bottom step to put them on. She thrust her icy hands into fleece-lined, fur mittens and began to glide down the driveway around its steep and sudden curves. She was leaving a clear trail, but that couldn’t be helped here. Once she got as far as the road, any trail she left would be soon obliterated by tire tracks.

  Betwee
n the trunks of two tall pines she saw evidence that someone else had been abroad early—a fox—but still there was no sign of human tracks anywhere near the house save those she was making now.

  On the road the slope leveled out and her progress was slower, but that didn’t worry her. She was beyond sight of the house now. There was no reason to hurry unless she heard a hue and cry behind her, and then she could discard her skis and take to the deep woods where underbrush would make it hard to follow her quickly. If only it were summer! Then a few yards into the woods and she would be completely hidden. But in winter, with leafless trees and half the underbrush dead, it was harder to hide.

  She went nearly a mile before she came to a fork in the road and swerved left. Now she could see the chimneys of Vanya’s house among the tops of pine trees. The house stood in a hollow, below the level of the road. She took off her skis and carried them the rest of the way. If anyone did try to track her from the ski marks she had left in her own driveway, they would be looking for more ski tracks here, not for footprints. She kicked her feet as she set them down so the tracks would be blurred and enlarged. She hoped the added weight of the skis would make it look as if a heavier person had walked here.

  She came to a halt at the back of the house under the windows of Vanya’s room. Beside the kitchen door were rosebushes in winter overcoats of straw. She groped under the snow until she found a few of the pebbles that lay around the roots of the roses in summer.

  When the fifth pebble struck the windowpane, the window opened and Vanya leaned out, hair tousled, eyelids heavy with sleep.

  “Oh, it’s you, Worm. What the hell—”

  “Sh-sh. Not so loud, Vanya. I must talk to you at once.”

  “What time is it?”

  “About six o’clock.”

  “God, are you nuts? I’m going back to sleep.”

  “No, Vanya! Things have happened. Lots of things. Can’t you come downstairs and let me into the kitchen? If you’re careful, your mother won’t wake up.”

  “What happened?”

  “I can’t tell you standing here. If we go on talking as loud as this, your mother will wake up. Be a sport! Let me in. You’ll be sorry, if you don’t.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll come down.”

  He closed the window without making a sound.

  She hadn’t noticed the cold while she was skiing, but now, standing still, she felt cold. She propped the skis against the wall of the house and hunched her shoulders, crossing her arms over her chest, trying to hold the warmth of her body in, but it didn’t do any good. She was shivering. Would he go back to sleep after all and just leave her standing there?

  The door opened and she saw the reason for the delay. He had stopped to put on loafers and slacks and sweater.

  “You needn’t have dressed.” She brushed past him. “Every moment counts.”

  “You’re scared.” He eyed her speculatively. “What’s up?”

  “All sorts of things and I am scared. I’m not going to pretend I’m not. David Crowe died last night. The State Police are at the house now. I slipped out when they were in the dining room. No one knows I’m here. They think I’m still asleep.”

  “David Crowe’s dead? How did he die?”

  “I don’t know how he died. I don’t know anything about it. I was asleep when it happened. But I did overhear the police talking to Dr. Willing just now. They said something about that room at the head of the stairs. The one that’s always locked. The one that’s supposed to be haunted. I think he died in there and—” Her voice winced, but she forced it on. “I think he was murdered.”

  “Nothing to do with you or me,” said Vanya quickly.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Pull yourself together, Worm, and I’ll make you some coffee.”

  “Do you know how?”

  “It’s instant.”

  “Ugh! How icky!”

  “You’re lucky to get that.” He plumped a mug down in front of her, put in a spoonful of powdered coffee and two spoonfuls of sugar.

  “I want a saucer. I’m civilized.”

  “So am I, but my mother isn’t.” His voice went higher, a parody of affectation. “Won’t you have some coffee, my deah? In a mug, of course. We are mug people.”

  “Well, I’m not a mug person. I want a saucer and a spoon.”

  “Okay.” He pushed a butter plate under the mug and handed her a battered kitchen spoon. The kettle began to whistle. He poured hot water into her cup.

  “Why is your mother like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Mug people.”

  “Oh, it’s the time when she was growing up, I guess. The thirties. There was a lot of inverted snobbery around then. A lot of people were broke and made a virtue of necessity. Cheap crockery instead of china, wooden beads instead of pearls, a poster from some travel agency instead of a good engraving. It was all of a piece and they never got over it. My mother’s still talking the way people did then. Do you know she still reads Pavlov and all his camp followers and takes them seriously? She tells everyone that I’m an outgoing boy and well adjusted to the group because she never spoiled me. Of course the whiz now is not to adjust to the group, and God knows I work at it, but she doesn’t even realize that conformism is old-hat. People don’t outlive their youth. Everybody dies at thirty.”

  “Do you suppose we will? Will we have children someday who’ll think we’re old-hat?”

  “No. Well be different.” He sang softly:

  “The sun may rise and shine at night,

  Birds swim and fish take flight . . .”

  Lucinda joined in the chorus:

  “Heigh-ho, it’s still all right,

  We’ll be the same .. . Only we won’t, of course.”

  “No, we won’t.” Vanya sat down beside her, warming his hands around his own mug of coffee. “It’s easy to laugh at old age when you haven’t seen twenty yet . . .” She put up her mouth and he kissed her. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll pick up my virus?”

  “I’m not scared of viruses.”

  “What are you scared of?”

  “Vanya . . . were you really here last night at nine o’clock when you telephoned me? I want the truth! Don’t you dare snow me! If you do, I’ll never forgive you.”

  Something in her voice sobered Vanya. “I was here, Worm. Awful sore throat I had. Of course I wanted to go out. I wanted to go over to your house and carry out our plan. I even told my mother you were expecting me, when all else failed. But she wouldn’t listen. She made me take aspirin and hot lemonade and go to bed. So I called you before I went to bed and I must have been asleep a few minutes later. Calling you is about the last thing I remember clearly. If you don’t believe me, ask my mother. But . . . why are you asking me?”

  “It happened.”

  “What did?”

  “The raps. And you weren’t there.”

  Vanya set down his mug. “Are you kidding?”

  “No. It was just before you telephoned. So, when it happened, I thought of course that it was you making the raps.”

  “Well, I’ll be . . . Of course old houses do creak a bit at night, but—”

  “No, Vanya, it wasn’t that.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Don’t you understand? I really did think it was you making the noises. After all, we had planned everything so carefully. Remember?”

  “Of course.”

  “I carried out our plan. I—” Her mouth trembled. “I shouted: Do as I do, Mr. Splitfoot! And I clapped my hands three times, and . . .”

  “And what?”

  Her eyes filled. “Oh, Vanya, there were three raps in response.”

  It was her first experience of the fact that even we ourselves do not always realize how deeply we are being moved until we reach the peak of a crisis. All morning she had been as tightly wound as a coiled spring. She had felt as if she would never relax again. Now, putting her fear into words brought on the shock of total realization. Un
der that shock everything was breaking.

  Tears slid down her cheeks, but her eyes were wide open and she didn’t sob. It was the first time she had ever wept without crying, the first time she had ever experienced the personality split which reduces tears to a purely physical reaction.

  The water in her eyes was a prism refracting light in various colors. Through the dazzle, she could see Vanya’s stunned face.

  “You swear it wasn’t you?”

  “It wasn’t. I swear.”

  She saw fear in his eyes as great as her own. After that, she couldn’t doubt him.

  “Then . . . if it wasn’t you . . . what was it? Oh, God, what was it?”

  Chapter Nine

  GISELA HEARD voices before she opened her eyes—a distant murmur. There was a pause, then the murmur again. She opened her eyes.

  She was lying on her side and the first thing that met her gaze was an unfamiliar wall papered in cream-color with a design of moss rosebuds in pale green and pink. She twisted over on her back. Sharp pain stabbed one ankle and she felt a bandage. Full consciousness came back in a flood. Snow . . . Crow’s Flight . . . Dinner . . . Do as I do, Mr. Splitfoot! Voices . . . Noises in the night . . . Basil and men in uniform. Sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Willing, but there has been a sudden death—Mr. Crowe. He died in the room at the head of the stairs. It looks like a death from natural causes, but we would like to know if you heard anything during the night? . . . Nothing at all? . . . Thank you so much . . .

  A tap on the door. Police again?

  Gisela reached for the fluffy pink mohair dressing gown beside the bed and called: “Come in!”

  To her relief it was Basil, bearing coffee.

  “Oh, thank you, darling. Is it terribly late?”

  “Terribly. Twelve noon. But there was no particular reason for wakening you before.”