Mr Splitfoot (Dr Basil Willing)

by Helen McCloy

  “What happened last night? I was only half awake when the police asked me if I’d heard anything. I hardly remember what they said. Do tell me about it.”

  She sipped her coffee as she listened, her eyes growing rounder. At last she set down the empty cup.

  “I feel as if we had skied right off the map last night into one of those vast, empty spaces marked on old charts: Here Be Dragons.”

  “So do I. All that bell, book and candle business seems so silly now. Of course none of us expected to trap a ghost. I wanted to prove to Swayne that there was nothing to trap. I think the others were hoping we might unmask the joker who made those rapping noises. If there was a joker to unmask, opening up the haunted room would give him—or her—an opportunity hard to resist.”

  “And it was just coincidence that David Crowe happened to die in the middle of all this?”

  “Was it?” Basil sighed. “Then . . . why did he ring that bell? Surely if he’d felt the sudden chest pains of a heart attack, he’d have called out to us, wouldn’t he?”

  “You say that each time the bell rang the rings were all run together and blurred so you couldn’t tell if he was ringing once or twice or thrice. Wouldn’t the rings blur if he was in pain or frightened?”

  “But why ring at all? That’s what bothers me. If something really frightened him, wouldn’t he have forgotten all about bells and signals and shouted for us? Real fear produces real response. If you think you’re going to die, you run or yell or fight. You don’t just sit there, tinkling a little bell because you said you would if anything happened to you.”

  “But that’s what Crowe did, so that proves . . . what?”

  “It doesn’t prove anything, but it suggests a lot. Perhaps he wasn’t really frightened when he rang the bell. Perhaps he didn’t expect to die.”

  “You mean that Crowe himself was playing some kind of trick or joke on the rest of you and it went wrong?”

  “That’s one possibility.”

  “But . . . if he was . . .” Gisela hesitated.

  “You don’t like to say it, do you?”

  “Say what?”

  “What you are obviously going to say: If he was playing a trick or joke on us, wouldn’t he need a confederate? And wouldn’t the confederate, who knew all about the trick, be the person most likely to kill him, using the trick to distract our attention from the real situation, murder?”

  “Another man? I can see two men planning a trick like that together, but somehow not a man and a woman.”

  “Yet in these circumstances, the confederate is more likely to have been a woman.”

  “Why?”

  “All the men have alibis. Alcott, Swayne and I were all together downstairs after we left Crowe alone in the room upstairs and we stayed together until the bell rang and Crowe was found dead. No one could have got to Crowe from outside the house. There were no tracks or footprints in the new-fallen snow around the house when the police arrived last night. No man could have got to Crowe inside the house. All the time Crowe was upstairs, Alcott, Swayne and I were sitting in the living room near the open door into the lower hall where we could see the stairs. We didn’t watch it every moment, but I do not believe anyone could have gone up that stairway without our seeing or hearing him. And there is no other stair. So it would seem as if the only people who do not have alibis are the women who were in the bedrooms upstairs.”

  “If one of the women had gone along the hall to the haunted room, would you have heard her?”

  “I don’t know. There is one floorboard that creaks up there. I noticed it yesterday. On the other hand we might not have heard a single creak. We were all talking and playing cards. . . . We didn’t think Crowe was in any real danger. We assumed that if anything frightened him, he’d ring the bell. . . . Oh, well, it’s not my case, thank God! How’s the ankle this morning?”

  “Let’s see.” Gisela swung her legs to the floor and tried to rise, clinging to the bedpost.

  “Can you walk?” He gave her his arm.

  She took a few steps, leaning on him heavily.

  “Worse?”

  “I’m afraid so. I can’t even stand without pain this morning, let alone walk.”

  “Sounds like a fracture. We’ll have to get you to a hospital and have some X-rays this morning.”

  “And that means a cast?”

  “A walking cast in a day or so, and crutches. But not for very long. Stay here in bed and I’ll see what arrangements I can make.”

  Captain Marriott was standing in front of the hearth in the living room watching as a young trooper used the fire shovel to remove ashes from the fireplace and deposit them on a newspaper. He was young for a captain, or perhaps he merely seemed younger than he was because his eyes were such an innocent shade of blue and so intensely serious.

  When he saw Basil, he seemed to think some explanation was necessary. “Thought we might as well look through this staff in the grate. If there’s a fire handy, people will throw small things in to get rid of them.”

  “So I see.” Basil looked with distaste at three cigarette stubs, an empty cigarette pack, rather crumpled, a scrap of paper envelope scorched around the edges, two tenpenny nails and, worst of all, the core of an apple beginning to turn brown.

  Captain Marriott noticed his look. “I feel the way you do. It’s no way to treat an indoor hearth, but a lot of people don’t realize that. They seem to think an ordinary fire will consume anything. Even professional criminals make that mistake sometimes, and when they do, it can be a big help to us.”

  Basil looked at him quickly. “You’re thinking in terms of crime?”

  “I have to until the autopsy report comes through. . . . Now what would that be?”

  It was a tiny object, so tiny that only its creamy white color made it stand out among the gray-white ashes. Marriott picked it up and showed it to Basil lying on the palm of his hand. A little elephant, carved in hard-looking, white material. Too hard to be plastic. Ivory? You didn’t carve plastic, you molded it, and this delicate definition of fine detail suggested hand carving. If it was ivory, it must be old, for it was the dingy yellowish white of old lace.

  “I suppose it might be Japanese,” said Basil. “They carve tiny objects in ivory called netsuké.”

  He turned it over with one finger. On the other side, now revealed, there was a dot—a minute perforation with a faint ring of rust around its edge. “At some time this little elephant has been attached to something metallic. It looks as if it might have been an old-fashioned hatpin made from a netsuké.”

  “I wonder what it’s doing here? And I wonder what happened to the rest of it?” Marriott laid it down carefully in a clean ash tray on the table beside him. “You have something on your mind?”

  Basil told him about Gisela.

  “She may have to spend a night or so in the hospital. Once she’s comfortable, I’ll probably go on to the ski lodge where we have rooms reserved, unless you need me for something here.”

  “Well . . .” Marriott smiled suddenly and disarmingly. “At the moment I feel as if I needed all the help I could get. I’ve been talking to the district attorney in New York about you. Called him early this morning. From what he said, I gather you’ve had offbeat cases like this before. What’s more, you were on the spot here when it happened. Perhaps you’d stop by on your way to the ski lodge after leaving Mrs. Willing at the hospital. We may have a preliminary autopsy report by that time.”

  “I’ll be glad to do that.”

  “Oh, you will, will you?”

  The mocking, cackling voice startled all three men.

  “Who said that?” demanded Marriott, looking toward the dining room.

  “Came from outside, I think, sir.” The young trooper started toward the front door.

  “You’re both wrong,” said Basil. “Look at the center table.”

  They turned and looked and stood speechless.

  The high, brass bird cage stood in the middle of the tab
le. Tobermory was sidling along his perch, preening feathers of jade and turquoise brilliant as tropical seas. Beady eyes were fixed on Basil. The cackle came again.

  “Three cheeahs for good old Hahvahd!” A gasp, a gurgle. Was that meant for a laugh? “Not loud enough to be vulgah . . . But loud enough to be heahd. . . . Splitfoot . . . Splitfoot . . . Splitfoot . . . toobroo . . . toobroo . . . toobroo . . .”

  Basil studied the bird with fascination. “To think he was there in that room last night when Crowe died. He saw and heard everything that happened. If only he could really talk . . .”

  “But he can’t,” said Marriott. “Those birds are just echoes. They don’t know what they’re saving They’re like tapes. They record without understanding.”

  “But they do record,” said Basil thoughtfully.

  Tobermory cackled again. “Shall I freshen up your drink? . . . Why don’t you bring your drinks to the table? . . . Toobroo . . . toobroo . . . toobroo . . .”

  “What’s that he’s saying now?” asked Marriott.

  “To me it sounds like to brood,” said Basil.

  “And to me it sounds like gibberish.” Swayne had just come into the room from the dining room. He spoke lightly, but his eyes were troubled.

  Chapter Ten

  VANYA WAS BEING masterful. “What you need is more coffee, Worm,” he told Lucinda. “You’re getting hysterical.”

  “I’m not hysterical. Just scared.” She shivered and her thin hands clasped the mug of hot coffee as if she were trying to warm them. “Aren’t you?”

  Vanya paused, turning the question around in his mind, examining it from every point of view. “Yes, I am rather,” he admitted. “But I’m more fascinated than scared. Aren’t you?”

  Lucinda smiled one of her pale smiles. “When I’m with you and it’s daylight—yes. But when I’m alone and it’s dark . . . Vanya, don’t you think it’s time you told me where you were going to hide if you had made those raps?”

  “No, I don’t. A secret shared is a secret lost.”

  “Well . . .” Lucinda smiled again. “You don’t have to tell me now. I know.”

  “What!”

  “I found out by accident yesterday afternoon. I was trying to slide down that ramp thing in the upper hall and the wall gave way under my hand. Oh, Vanya, it’s the most wonderful secret in the world! You were mean not to tell me before. After all, it’s my house, not yours.”

  “Well I’ll be damned . . .”

  “That is where you were going to hide, isn’t it?”

  “Of course. That’s what gave me the whole idea of the poltergeist caper in the first place. It’s such a perfect hiding place.”

  “And such a perfect listening post. You can hear everything that’s said in the bedrooms and the living room.”

  “You can? Are you quite sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Didn’t you know?”

  “I explored the house when it was empty before you moved in. There was nothing to overhear.”

  “Well, you can. I heard the Crowes talking yesterday in their bedroom when they first got there. They were quarreling.”

  “What about?”

  “He was saying she was . . . well, paying too much attention to some other man, and she kept saying she wasn’t. It was just like listening to television when you can’t see the screen.”

  “Who was the other man?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “You’re sure it was the Crowes you heard?”

  “Oh, yes. I know their voices. Besides, he called her Serena.”

  “I wonder if this could have anything to do with the murder?”

  “Motive? Lover kills husband because lover wants to marry wife?”

  “Or wife kills husband because she wants to marry lover.” Vanya scraped at a spot on the linoleum with the toe of his loafer. “There must be some reasonable explanation for the murder. And there must be some reason for the poltergeist bit, too. You realize that, don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t,” said Lucinda. “And you didn’t talk as if you thought there was a reasonable explanation for poltergeists yesterday.”

  “That was yesterday.” He grinned. “Your eyes do get so round when I tell you that sort of thing. You show a rim of white all around the iris, like a frightened horse. The temptation is irresistible.”

  “What temptation?”

  “Epater le . . . What’s the French for Worm? Ver?”

  “Stop calling me Worm in any language and tell me what you mean.”

  “I enjoy scaring you. Or rather I did enjoy scaring you yesterday, but now I’m beginning to get scared myself. I can’t believe a knocking spirit answered you when I wasn’t there to fake it, but what did happen? Why would anyone else fake it, and how? Then there’s another thing. You and I know a lot of things the police don’t know, things that a murderer might not want the police to know, like Crowe’s being jealous of his wife. I wonder if that’s healthy . . . for us . . .”

  “We don’t know anything really significant.”

  “Are you sure? We know about the attic, and we know that we planned that poltergeist trick.”

  “Are those things significant?”

  “They may be. We just don’t know.”

  “I suppose you’re going to say we ought to tell the police all that now?”

  Vanya threw her a dark, reproachful look. “Really, Worm! You should know me better than that.”

  “I said stop calling me Worm.”

  He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “You don’t know me very well, or you wouldn’t even suggest I’d say anything like that. No, I was going to say that—with all we know that the police don’t know—you and I should be able to solve this case and find the murderer long before they do.”

  “Oh, Vanya!” Lucinda looked at him with a respect that must have satisfied even his adolescent ego. “You are wonderful! How do we go about it? Will we have to draw up lists of suspects and timetables and all that sort of thing?”

  “Certainly not!” said Vanya. “That’s the part I always skip in detective stories. The really good ones don’t even put it in.”

  “Then what do we have to do?”

  “Think.”

  “That’s harder than drawing up lists and timetables.”

  “I know, but, unfortunately, it’s necessary.”

  Lucinda waited a minute or so while he thought with ostentatiously knitted brows. At last she ventured an interruption. “Vanya, what are we supposed to be thinking about?”

  “The murder, of course.”

  “But what part of the murder?”

  “Well, for one thing, is there any way the murderer could have found out about our poltergeist plan? Could he have used it as part of his murder plan? Could it have been he who made the answering raps when you called out: Do as I do, Mr. Splitfoot?”

  “Why would a murderer do that?”

  “I don’t know why, but . . . could he have faked it? Could anyone have faked it? You were there. I wasn’t. You tell me.”

  “I don’t see how anyone could. Everybody in the house was in the living room with me when it happened except Martha, the cook, and it couldn’t have been Martha.”

  “Why not?”

  “She’s too dignified. Besides, she was in the kitchen and that’s on the other side of the dining room, much too far from the living room. The people who were in the living room were all in full view of one another and no one was moving when the answering knocks came. After it was over, everybody was too shocked and surprised to move for a few moments. And then the telephone rang. That was your call.”

  “You can fake looking surprised, of course,” said Vanya. “It would be harder to fake not moving while you were making the raps. I don’t see how anyone could.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “What direction did the raps come from?”

  “Oh, Vanya, how can I tell? You know how hard it is to tell where a sound comes from if you have no visual clue. That’
s been proved by experiment in psychological laboratories.”

  “I know, I know, but still . . . Haven’t you any idea at all?”

  “No, I haven’t. Oh, how I wish the thing had worked out the way we planned it in the first place! The raps would have sounded so scary coming from the other side of the wall. Just think how scared They would have been if They had looked for a way to get to the other side of the wall and hadn’t been able to find any!”

  “I know. It was a perfect set up and then I had to go and get a sore throat and spoil everything!”

  “I wonder what would have happened if you hadn’t got a sore throat?”

  “That’s a thought. I would have been scared witless hiding alone in the dark attic if answering knocks had come before I had time to fake them. Gosh!”

  “And I would have thought it was you faking them all the time when it wasn’t.”

  Vanya shook his head dubiously. “If the faker wasn’t someone in the living room, he must’ve been someone outside the house.”

  “With all that snow and no footprints anywhere near the house?”

  “None at all?”

  “When the raps started, Daddy opened the front door to see if anyone was knocking. There wasn’t anybody, of course. The snow was still falling and there weren’t any prints.”

  “You mean there weren’t any in front of the house. How about the back and sides.”

  “Wouldn’t the police look when they came in the middle of the night after Crowe died? Wouldn’t they be looking now for someone outside the house if they’d found any prints then?”

  “So it all comes down to this: the raps couldn’t have been made by anyone inside the house or by anyone outside the house.”

  “I know.” Lucinda’s voice faltered. “Vanya, do you think perhaps there really is a Mr. Splitfoot?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Not a devil or a poltergeist or a ghost but . . . well . . . forces . . .”

  “Nonsense! There has to be some rational explanation and it’s up to us to find it. Did Mrs. Crowe show any signs of interest in any particular man last night?”

  Lucinda shook her head.

  “Were you watching her?”