“I’m perfectly sure of it, and it falls into one exact class of mental ailment. I’ve much to do, though, before I’m sure which class it is.... One thing is clear, her struggle to liberate herself is expressed through her novels, and the strange aberrations of her mind find reflection in the sordid cruelty of the stories she writes. As you know, yesterday I set myself to whiz through three of her novels. They are all of a pattern—brutal, yet brilliantly done. An imagination many would give anything to possess, but soured with her own innate sense of bitter injustices.”
“Then what do you propose to do next? You’ll have to be careful how far you go, won’t you, in case she starts suspecting that you’re up to something.”
“There are two things I wish to do next—find out for myself what is behind that screwed door there”—Castle nodded to it—“and also see that room of miniature furniture which Calthorp mentioned. Naturally, I’ll be trespassing, and taking a risk, but it won’t be for the first time. This young woman is an exceptionally interesting problem, and I hope I may be able to help her. Incidentally, it is noteworthy—according to Calthorp—that before she met Hexley Miss Farraday was thinking of becoming engaged to a local man, a commercial by the name of Hargraves. Seems that when she cut with Hexley, Hargraves returned into the picture and asked her to become engaged to him. She refused, saying that there were reasons why she did not wish to get married then.”
“With so much hanging over her head in the Hexley case, that is hardly surprising, is it?”
“There might be the much greater reason that she hopes she may yet meet another man who can give her as much back-handed fame as Hexley could have done, a thought which had never occurred to her until she met him. Certainly she must realize that marrying Hargraves cannot advance her any. She has, so to speak, tasted blood, which makes her dissatisfied with ordinary prospects.”
Castle was not able to say any more at that moment for Elsa returned with Brenda beside her, and immediately the conversation turned into commonplace channels.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Timing himself to awaken at two in the morning, Dr. Castle did so to the minute. He smiled to himself at this achievement in self-discipline, noticed that his wife was sleeping peacefully, and then slid out of bed, as carefully as his immense bulk would allow. He succeeded, apparently, without creating disturbance.
In silence he partly dressed in shirt, trousers, and, rubber-soled shoes—which he had put in his luggage against such an occasion as this—then making sure his flashlamp was working properly be slipped it in his pocket and glided silently from the room.
Closing the door gently he stood listening for a moment, but the house was deadly silent. From outside, too, there were no sounds in the expanses of countryside.
He went down the staircase, the thick carpet and rubber-soled shoes absorbing all noise—and so into the lounge. At the door with the shiny-headed screws down the sides he paused and fished a barrel-like tool from his pocket, containing screwdriver, corkscrew, small file, and other useful implements. Since Sergeant Dixon had already loosened the screws on the earlier occasion they now moved easily enough. In five minutes the psychiatrist had them all free and put them in his pocket.
Flashing his torch before him he went down into the cellar and looked about him. Where Calthorp had been looking for a body, Castle was looking for something quite different—evidences, bits in the puzzle, which would help him to form an even clearer picture of the mind of Elsa Farraday.
He prowled slowly, flashing the torch beam about him. When he reached the rusted iron door be stood considering it, then satisfied that it had not been budged for years he went further, pausing again at an ancient iron ring cemented deeply into one of the square blocks which formed the cellar wall. Castle’s expression changed a little.
The ring itself was only slightly rusty and had plainly been used up to a recent date for some purpose or other. The base of it, where it entered the stone, was flawed with red erosion.
“Mmm,” Castle murmured to himself. “Pretty much as I’d thought—and what a story it tells!”
He turned away, wandering to the furthest corner of the dirty, coal-dust ridden basement. So grimed were the walls he almost missed what was actually an old cupboard door set into the wall. Returning to it he pulled it open, the glare of the torch beam settling on a solitary object coiled up like a snake and pushed at the extreme back of the lowest shelf.
Frowning to himself, Castle pulled the thing out. It uncoiled into a thick leather belt with a heavy brass buckle. Obviously it was a man’s. Castle’s mouth tautened as he glanced back towards the spot where the ring in the wall was situated, then he turned to a more minute examination of the belt, putting the torch close to it and throwing into relief curious greyish marks as though paint had been spattered from a wet brush.
“I hope I’m right,” he murmured.
From his pocket he took a penknife and an old envelope. With infinite care he scraped the powdery substance away in a fine film until he had a fair deposit. Then he sealed the envelope, folded it four times, and put it in his wallet. The belt he carefully recoiled and replaced exactly in the circle of dust where he had found it. He was satisfied that Elsa Farraday would never come and look for it—but if by some chance she did he felt sure she would never realize the belt had been moved.
“Which seems to be that,” Castle told himself, and returned silently to the lounge.
He spent another five minutes re-screwing the door—then he glided from the lounge into the kitchen and looked about him. At the sight of the screwed cupboard doors he smiled faintly to himself but did not touch them. Departing, he went in the same ghostlike silence up the staircase, glided past the bedrooms, and paused at the door over the hall. He did not go into action immediately. For some time be remained lounging by the door, listening for the least sign of a noise. Since there was none he finally moved, tested the door and, as he had expected, found it locked.
With the master-key he carried he had no difficulty in turning the lock: there was nothing very complicated about it, anyway. It slid back gently and he eased his ponderous bulk into the room beyond, looking the door on the inside. Breathing musically he switched on the torch and looked about him. Immediately he had something of the same sensation of Gulliver in Lilliput that Barbara Vane had experienced when she had first stepped into this room.
Nowhere, as he moved about noiselessly, did Castle find a piece of furniture higher than his waist. Even the minute bookcase, the tallest piece of all, was no more than three feet six in height. Fondling his chins he considered everything carefully, glancing finally at the normal window, fireplace, and lofty ceiling.
Then the wandering beam of his torch settled on what he had taken to be a second window. Going across to it he found that the curtains were covering a recess in which was a variety of children’s frocks. In the base of this hanging wardrobe were neat shoes from patent leather to feather-edged bedroom shoes.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” he murmured. “In fact there is a distinct Alice in Wonderland aspect about this whole business....”
With some effort he went down on his knees and explored the floor of the hanging wardrobe with more detail, smiling to himself when he came upon a series of oblong boxes piled one on top of the other. Raising the lids of each he found a fully dressed beautifully made doll looking up at him unblinkingly.
“Splendid!” he chuckled to himself. “Absolute splendid. Just as I had hoped.”
He straightened up again and stood puffing whilst he once again contemplated the room, then, satisfied there was nothing more which interested him be silently let himself out into the passage, locked the door behind him, and went downstairs again.
This time he went to the study, nor was it locked. Torch in hand he moved to the desk where the quarto sheets were still lying as they had been earlier in the evening. He picked them tip, found the written ones were more or less numerically in order, and findin
g they had only gone as far as page thirty he settled down in the armchair by the desk and began reading from the beginning, still using his torch and keeping his ear cocked for the slightest untoward sound.
The more he read the more absorbed he became, and one sentence in particular, remarkable—as was the whole manuscript—for its missing letters in the words, impressed him enough for him to read it over several times. Though he had no means of knowing it, it was the section that Barbara Vane had read and, at that time, it had marked the limit of the story’s progress—
She knew that there could be no escape from such daming evidence, but at lest even from this complte destruction of her life she could extract one profund consolation—as a murderess she could achive that which, as an innocent, she had nevr achieved....
Carefully Castle copied down the extract in his notebook and then smiled to himself.
“And to think,” he muttered, “that I was hoping I might find a diary lying about somewhere, when this brief statement is far more revealing than a diary could ever be. My word, it’s the answer!”
He sat staring blankly before him, thinking, his interest in the remainder of the manuscript momentarily banished. After a while he returned to it and read through doggedly as far as the story had progressed, but nowhere else did he find any other section quite so interesting.
“Yes, self-revelation,” he murmured. “Everybody ruled by an ego has some way of recording it, the most common being by a diary which, after death, is often found by others. The egomaniac has no other way of advertising to the world those actions that in life are kept secret.... Mmm.”
He put the papers back in pretty much the same disorder as he had found them, then went silently from the room. He was complimenting himself on how subtly he had accomplished everything when his wife’s voice in bed beside him made him start.
“Well, Adam, have you finished prowling yet?”
“Er—yes, my dear,” he admitted. “But how did you know that I had been?”
Mrs. Castle laughed softly. “Good heavens, Adam, you don’t suppose that a baby Jumbo like you can get out of bed without shaking the whole room, do you? I’ve been lying here ever since you went, wondering what you might be up to.”
“Oh, you have?” Castle sighed. “Well, I’ve been piecing together odd bits in the puzzle—as I said I was going to, and I have been remarkably successful, too.”
“In what way? Proving that Miss Farraday murdered that man Hexley?”
“No—proving that she didn’t. I never did think that she did and now I’m convinced of it.”
There was a momentary silence in the dark room. “Then who did kill him?”
“The way things are looking,” Castle murmured, “I’m beginning to doubt if anybody did.”
“Suicide then? Because he knew he could never paint again?”
“No; not even that....” Castle stifled a yawn and added, “Don’t ask me to explain more now, my dear. I’ve a lot of sleep on which to catch up. I’ll tell you everything soon enough.” A long pause followed and then he added, “There’s one thing I am quite sure of, and it is that Miss Farraday must have been the most disappointed young woman in this world when Calthorp didn’t arrest her on suspicion of murder.”
“Disappointed! Great heavens, I should think it must have been a tremendous relief.”
“Not for Miss Farraday. I read something tonight which satisfies me that that was the one thing she was hoping for—and it misfired.”
“Well, go on!” Mrs. Castle urged. “Having got me this far you can’t leave me hanging in mid-air. Why did she hope for that?”
“Because, and I quote from her manuscript—‘as a murderess she could achieve that which, as an innocent, she could never have achieved....’ Unquote. That achievement being notoriety, and notoriety is only fame tarnished with scandal. The public would have talked about her. She would have been noticed—as a murderess.”
“And, because she was not accused of murder you think that she must have been disappointed—because it meant she had failed in her object?” Mrs. Castle sighed. “Well, Adam, you probably know what you mean, but I certainly don’t. For instance, I cannot understand why she confessed to a murder at all when she must have known, especially as a thriller-writer, that she just couldn’t be arrested without the body being produced.”
“She could have been arrested on suspicion though, body or no body, and that alone would have drawn immediate attention to her—but Calthorp did not do that. Calthorp’s a wary bird, and always has been. He wanted to be sure of his facts first. Arresting a person on suspicion and then finding them innocent is not a very good reflection on the police.”
“The whole business is weak somewhere!” Mrs. Castle declared. “That girl, in spite of confession, must certainly know that her plan for achieving notoriety as a murderess can never be accomplished until the body is found. That being so, why on earth did she ever put the body in the swamp, as she seems to have done, when she must have been aware that that very act prevented it from being discovered?”
“The answer to that one, my dear, is that she planned to gain fame by being arrested and having all the sordid details published, and finally escape with her life because of the absence of a body by which she could be definitely charged. Certainly a risky way of achieving limelight, but evidently she knows that the swamp never gives up its victims. What spoiled things for her was Calthorp’s decision not to arrest her.”
“I wish,” Mrs. Castle said thoughtfully, “I could understand why she wants to achieve notice by every conceivable method.”
“She can’t help herself. It’s a natural reaction—but since it carries us some distance ahead of that which we have proved. I’ll say no more— And I’m losing sleep.”
Castle didn’t speak for several moments, then he murmured:
“One thing, my dear— Calthorp wondered if Miss Farraday was speaking the truth when she said that her father had screwed up that door in the lounge, and presumably the cupboard doors in the kitchen. It seemed to him that the screws were much too new to have been in for two years. And I think he’s right. Those screws have not been there above two months or so, I’ll wager.”
“Then she screwed them up? Whatever for?”
Dr. Castle did not respond. He was snoring gently.
* * * * * * *
The following morning, under her husband’s orders, Mrs. Castle had her breakfast in bed, Brenda bringing it to her and Elsa appearing for a few moments to inquire as to her health.
“I can hardly move,” Mrs. Castle lied gracefully. “I was so afraid this might happen after a night’s rest.”
“The doctor will be back again this morning,” Elsa said, with her queer little smile. “He’ll soon see what can be done to set you right. In the meantime don’t worry about a thing.”
“You’re most kind, Miss Farraday,” Mrs. Castle told her.
Elsa said no more, leaving Brenda with her mother. She went downstairs to find Dr. Castle at the close of a breakfast that he had evidently gathered together for himself. He beamed on her as she came into the room.
“Ah, good morning, Miss Farraday! You won’t mind my having rustled together a meal for myself, I trust?”
“Not at all,” the girl responded, shrugging. “Whilst you are here, please feel at home.”
She stood beside the table for a moment and considered the toast, meat-paste, and marmalade that Castle had discovered for himself. She seemed to be deciding what she herself would eat. Castle munched daintily as he regarded her, then he said:
“I’m a little puzzled about something, Miss Farraday. The cupboards in the kitchen— To my surprise I found them screwed up.”
“Yes.” She gazed at him steadily. “My father did that to stop them swinging. I’ve never unscrewed them since.”
Castle nodded but did not say any more. He had noted the matter-of-fact way in which the girl had responded, which suggested she was well prepared for the question;
then concluding his breakfast he got to his feet.
“I take it there is a post office in the village, Miss Farraday?”
She nodded.
“Good. I’d better wire one or two of my friends and let them know what happened to us, otherwise they’ll be wondering. Be a change from Brenda doing all the running about, and I daresay the exercise will do me good....”
With that he managed to escape before he had to explain himself further. Smiling thoughtfully he left the house a few minutes later, a rather small black homburg on his silvery hair and his nose sniffing appreciatively at the warm summer wind blowing across the fields.
When he reached the village post office he hesitated, fondling his chins and contemplating the sharp-nosed woman flitting about behind the assorted groceries and fly-blown confections.
“Won’t do,” he muttered. “In a place as small as this a registered letter to Scotland Yard would attract more attention than an earthquake. No, I’d better go further.”
He did—taking a bus fifteen miles to Guildford. Here he bought a registered envelope at the general post office and in one of the partitions reserved for writers of telegrams he wrote a brief note—
For forensic department to deal with by precipitin test for blood-group, report to be sent to Chief Inspector Calthorp. Adam Castle.
This done, he addressed the envelope to Calthorp at Scotland Yard, obtained his receipt, and then went outside to a telephone kiosk. In a few moments he was speaking to Calthorp himself.
“Well, doc, I’m glad to hear from you!” Calthorp exclaimed. “I was just beginning to wonder how you were getting on. From where are you speaking?”
“Guildford—safer than locally from Midhampton,” Castle went into a brief resume of his audacious entry into Elsa Farraday’s home and then continued: “I’ve just mailed to you, registered, some greyish dust, Calthorp. My guess is that it’s blood, but only the bendizine and precipitin tests will prove that. Get forensic to classify it and find out its group.”
Reflected Glory Page 12
