The Case of the Constant Suicides

by John Dickson Carr

  “Aye.”

  “But if Shira isn’t a canny place, what’s wrong with it? Ghosts?”

  The driver whacked the steering-wheel with a slow and dogged hand, as though he were setting a stamp on it.

  “I’m no’ sayin’ it’s ghaists, I’m no’ sayin’ wha’ it is. I’m sayin’ it isna a canny place, and it isna.”

  Swan, after whistling between his teeth, opened the guide-book. While the car jolted, and the long afternoon light grew less golden, he turned to the section devoted to Inverarary. He read aloud:

  “Before entering the town by the main road, the traveler should look (left) at the Castle of Shira.

  This building contains no features of architectural interest. It was built toward the end of the sixteenth century, but has since been added to. It will be recognized by its round tower, with a conical slate roof, at the southeastern corner. This tower, sixty-two feet high, is thought to have been the first effort in an ambitious scheme of building which was later abandoned.

  Tradition has it that in 1692, following the massacre of Glencoe in February of that year –”

  Swan interrupted himself.

  “Hold on!” he said, rubbing his jaw. “I’ve heard about the massacre of Glencoe. I remember, when I was at school in Detroit . . . What the devil’s the matter with him? Hoy!”

  The driver, his good-humor now restored, was bending back and forth over the wheel in paroxysms of silent inner amusement, so that tears stood in his eyes.

  “What is it, governor?” demanded Swan. “What’s wrong?”

  The driver choked. His inner mirth seemed like torture.

  “I thocht ye were an American,” he declared. “Tell me, noo. Hae ye heard aboot ma brither Angus, who wadna e’en gie the bluid-hoonds a scent?”

  Swan smote his forehead.

  “Man, dinna ye see it? Hae ye no sense o’ humor? C-e-n-t, cent; s-c-e-n-t, scent.”

  “Curiously enough,” said Swan, “I do see it. And I’m not an American; I’m a Canadian, even if I did go to school in Detroit. If anybody Brother-Anguses me again today, I’ll slaughter him. Which reminds me. (Stop chortling, can’t you? Preserve a proper Scottish gravity!)

  “But about this massacre of Glencoe. We acted it out in a play at school long ago. Somebody massacred somebody. What I can’t remember is whether the MacDonalds killed the Campbells, or the Campbells killed the MacDonalds.”

  It was Kathryn who answered him.

  “The Campbells killed the MacDonalds, of course,” she returned. “I say: they’re not still touchy about it in these parts, are they?”

  The driver, wiping the tears out of his eyes and becoming stern again, assured her that they weren’t.

  Swan opened the book again.

  “Tradition has it that in 1692, following the massacre of Glencoe in February of that year, Ian Campbell, a soldier in the troop of Campbell of Glenlyon, was so embittered by remorse that he committed suicide by leaping from the topmost window of the tower, dashing out his brains on the paving stones below.”

  Swan looked up.

  “That isn’t what happened to the old man the other day?”

  “Aye.”

  “Another tradition is that this suicide was not caused by remorse, but by the ‘presence’ of one of his victims, whose mangled body pursued him from room to room, until he had no alternative to keep it from touching him except to –”

  Swan shut up the book with a snap. “I think that’s enough,” he added. His eyes narrowed, and his voice grew soft. “What happened, by the way? The old man didn’t sleep up at the top of the tower, did he?”

  But the driver was not to be drawn. Ask no questions, his bearing intimated, and you will be told no lies.

  “Ye’ll be sein’ Loch Fyne i’ a moment, and then Shira,” he said. “Ah! Luke, now!”

  Reaching a crossroads, they turned to the right at Strachar. A glimmer of water spread out before them. And not a person there but uttered an exclamation of sheer appreciation.

  The loch seemed long, wide, and southwards, to their left, endless. Southwards it curved in sun-silvered widening, between heavy banks, for miles to join the Firth of Clyde.

  But northwards it lay landlocked – narrower, timelessly placid, its glimmering water slate-colored – and ran in the shape of a wedge to its end some three miles away. The smooth-molded hills, black or dark purple except where stray sunlight caught a splashing of pale purple heather or the dark green of pine and fir, closed round it as though patted into shape with a tone of underlying brown.

  Far across the loch, along the water’s edge, they could dimly see the low-lying white houses of a town, partly screened behind a belt of trees. They saw a church steeple; and, on the dominating hill above, a dot that looked like a watch-tower. So clear was the air that even at this distance Alan could have sworn he saw the white houses mirrored in the motionless water.

  The driver pointed.

  “Inveraray,” he said.

  Their car swept on. Swan was evidently so fascinated that he even forgot to point out wee burns.

  The road – a very good one, like all the roads they had seen so far – ran straight along the bank of the loch parallel with its length towards the north. Thus to reach Inveraray, which was on the opposite bank, they would have to drive to the head of the loch, circle round it, and come back on a parallel course to a point opposite where they were now.

  This, at least, was what Alan thought. Inveraray looked very close now, just across the gleaming water at its narrowest. Alan was leaning back expansively, taking comfort from the vast, strong hills, when the car stopped with a jerk and the driver climbed out.

  “Ge’ out,” he beamed. “Donald MacLeish’ll have a boat here, I’m thinkin’.”

  They stared at him.

  “Did you say boat?” exploded Swan.

  “Aye.”

  “But what in Satan’s name do you want a boat for?”

  “Tae row ye across.”

  “But the road goes there, doesn’t it? Can’t you just drive ‘way up there, and come round into Inveraray on the other side?”

  “Waste petrol when I’ve got ma arms?” demanded the driver, not without horror. “No si’ a fule! Ge’ out. It’s five, sax miles by the road.”

  “Well,” smiled Kathryn, who seemed to be preserving her gravity only with considerable effort, “I’m sure I don’t mind a turn on the water.”

  “Nor me,” conceded Swan, “provided somebody else does the rowing. But, my God, man!” He searched the air with gestures. “What’s the big idea? It’s not your petrol, is it? It belongs to the company, doesn’t it?”

  “Aye. But the preenciple’s the same. Ge’ in.”

  An almost extravagantly solemn trio, with the driver very cheerful at the oars, was ferried across the loch in the hush of early evening.

  Kathryn and Alan, their suitcases at their feet, sat in the stern of the boat facing toward Inverarary. It was that hour when the water seems lighter and more luminous than the sky, and there are shadows.

  “Brr!” said Kathryn presently.

  “Cold?”

  “A little. But it’s not that.” She looked at the driver, now the ferryman. “That’s the place, isn’t it? Over there, where there’s a little landing-stage?”

  “That’s it,” agreed the other, craning round to peer over his shoulder. The rowlocks creaked painfully. “It isna much tae luke at; but they do say, mind, that auld Angus Campbell left mair siller than ye caud shake a stick at.”

  Silently they watched the Castle of Shira grow up and out at them.

  It was some distance away from the town, and faced the loch. Built of ancient stone and brick painted gray, with a steep-pitched slate roof, it straggled along the water-side; Kathryn’s word, “slatternly”, occurred to Alan in connection with it.

  Most of all you noticed the tower. Round, and of moss-patched gray stone, it reared up to a conical slate roof at the south-eastern angle of the house. On the side facin
g the loch it appeared to have only one window. This was a latticed window, with two lights, set close up near the roof; and from there to the uneven flagstones which paved the ground in front of the house must have been close to sixty feet.

  Alan thought of the sickening plunge from that window, and moved uneasily.

  “I suppose,” Kathryn hesitated, “it’s rather – well, primitive?”

  “Hoots!” said the driver, with rich scorn. “They hae the electric light.”

  “Electric light?”

  “Aye. And a bathroom tu, though I’m no’ sae sure of that.” Again he craned over his shoulder, and his face darkened. “D’ye see the man standin’ by the wee pier and lukin’ at us? That’ll be the Dr Colin Campbell I was tellin’ ye aboot. Practices medicine in Manchester, or some sic heathen place.”

  The figure by the pier partly blended with the gray and brown of the landscape. It was that of a man short in stature, but very broad and burly, with a dogged, truculent lift to the shoulders. He wore an old shooting coat, with corduroy breeches and leggings, and had his hands thrust into his pockets.

  It was the first time in many years that Alan had seen a doctor with a beard and mustache. These, though close-cropped, were untidy and gave an impression of shagginess together with the shaggy hair. Its color was an indeterminate brown, touched with what might have been yellow or more probably gray. Colin Campbell, the first of Angus’s two younger brothers, was in his middle or late sixties, but looked younger.

  He watched them critically as Alan assisted Kathryn out of the boat, and Swan scrambled after them. Though his manner was not unamiable, there was always a suggestion of a bristle about it.

  “And who,” he said in a heavy bass voice, “might you be?”

  Alan performed introductions. Colin took his hands out of his pockets, but did not offer to shake hands.

  “Well,” he said, “you might as well come in. Why not? They’re all here: the Fiscal, and the law-agent, and the man from the insurance company, and Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all. This is Alistair Duncan’s doing, I suppose?”

  “That’s the solicitor?”

  “Law agent,” corrected Colin, with a ferocious grin which Alan rather liked. “Law agent, when you’re in Scotland. Yes. That’s what I meant.”

  He turned to Swan, and his shaggy eyebrows drew together over a pair of leonine eyes.

  “What did you say your name was? Swan? Swan? I don’t know any Swans.”

  “I’m here,” said Swan, as though bracing himself, “at the request of Miss Elspat Campbell.”

  Colin stared at him.

  “Elspat sent for you?” he roared. “Elspat? God’s wounds! I don’t believe it!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because, barring a doctor or a minister, Aunt Elspat never sent for anything or anybody in her life. The only person or thing she ever wanted to see was my brother Angus and the London Daily Floodlight. God’s wounds! The old girl’s more cracked than ever. Reads the Daily Floodlight from cover to cover; knows the names of all the contributors; talks about jitterbugs and God knows what.”

  “The Daily Floodlight?” said Kathryn, with virtuous contempt. “That filthy scandal-sheet?”

  “Here! Oi! Go easy!” protested Swan. “You’re talking about my paper.”

  It was the turn of all of them to stare at him.

  “You’re not a reporter?” breathed Kathryn.

  Swan was soothing. “Now look,” he said with great earnestness. “It’s all right. I’m not going to use that bit about you and Doc Campbell sleeping in the same compartment on the train: that is, unless I have to. I only –”

  Colin interrupted him with a sudden and unexpected deep-throated bellow of laughter. Colin smote his knee, squared himself, and seemed to be addressing the whole universe.

  “A reporter? Why not? Come in and welcome! Why not spread the story all over Manchester and London too? Do us good! And what’s this about the two scholars of the family being up to hanky-panky on the train?”

  “I tell you –”

  “Not another word. I like you for it. God’s wounds! I like to see a bit of spirit in the younger generation, the kind we used to have. God’s wounds!”

  He clapped Alan on the back, and put a heavy arm round Alan’s shoulders, shaking him. His amiability was as overpowering as his truculence. Then, after roaring all this into the evening air, he lowered his voice conspiratorially.

  “We can’t put you in the same room here, I’m afraid. Got to keep up some of the proprieties. Let you have adjoining rooms, though. But mind you don’t mention this to Aunt Elspat.”

  “Listen! For the love of –”

  “She’s a great stickler for the conventions, in spite of being Angus’s mistress for forty years; and anyway, in Scotland, she’s now got the status of a common-law wife. Come in! Don’t stand there making funny faces! Come in! (Throw up those suitcases, Jock, and look sharp about it!)”

  “Ma name’s not Jock,” said the oarsman, jumping up precariously in the boat.

  Colin stuck out his bearded chin.

  “It’s Jock,” he retorted, “if I say it’s Jock. Just get that through your head, my lad. Do you want any money?”

  “Not from you. Ma name –”

  “Then that’s just as well,” said Colin, taking a suitcase under each arm as though they were parcels; “because damn me if I know whether I’ve got any to give you.”

  He turned to the others.

  “That’s the situation. If Angus was murdered, by Alec Forbes or anybody else, or if he fell out of that window by accident, then Elspat and I are rich, Elspat and a hard-working, stony broke GP are both rich. But if Angus committed suicide, I tell you straight we haven’t got a penny to bless our names.”

  5

  “But I understood –” Alan began.

  “You understood the old skinflint was rich? Yes! So did everybody else. But it’s the same old story.” Colin’s next remarks were darkly mysterious. “Ice cream!” he said. “Tractors! Drake’s gold! Trust a skinflint to be a simpleton when he thinks he can get richer.

  “Not that Angus was exactly a skinflint, mind. He was a swine, but a decent sort of swine, if you know what I mean. He helped me when I needed it, and he’d have helped our other brother too, if anybody’d known where to find the bounder after he got into trouble.

  “Well, what are we all standing here for? Get on into the house! You – where’s your suitcase?”

  Swan, who had been vainly attempting to get in a word edge-ways throughout this, gave it up for the moment as a bad job.

  “I’m not staying, thanks very much,” Swan replied. He turned to the driver. “You’ll wait for me?”

  “Aye. I’ll wait.”

  “Then that’s settled,” roared Colin. “Here – you – Jock. Get round to the kitchen and tell ’em to give you a half. Angus’s best whisky, mind. The rest of you, follow me.”

  Leaving behind them a man passionately announcing to the air that his name was not Jock, they followed Colin to the arched doorway. Swan, who appeared to have something on his mind, touched Colin’s arm.

  “Look,” he said. “It’s none of my business, but are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “Know what I’m doing? How?”

  “Well,” said Swan, pushing his soft gray hat to the back of his head, “I’ve heard the Scotch were booze-histers, of course; but this beats anything I ever expected. Is half a pint of whisky at one shot your usual tipple in these parts? He won’t be able to see the road on the way back, will he?”

  “A half, you ruddy Sassenach, is a small whisky. And you!” Colin now got behind Kathryn and Alan, and shooed them ahead of him. “You must have something to eat. Got to keep your strength up.”

  The hall into which he led them was spacious, but rather musty; and it smelt of old stone. They could make out little in the semi-gloom. Colin opened the door of a room on the left.

  “Wait in there, you two,” he ordered. “Swan,
my lad, you come with me. I’ll dig out Elspat. Elspat! Elspat! Where the devil are you, Elspat? Oh: and if you hear anybody arguing in the back room, that’s only Duncan the law agent, and Walter Chapman from the Hercules Insurance Company.”

  Alone, Alan and Kathryn found themselves in a long but rather low-ceilinged room with a faintly pervading odor of damp oilcloth. A wood fire had been lit in the grate against the evening chill. By the light of the fire, and the fainter one which struggled in through the two windows facing the loch, they saw that the furniture was horsehair, the pictures large, numerous, and running to broad gilt frames, and the carpet red but faded.

  On a side table lay an immense family Bible. A photograph, draped in black crepe, stood on the red tasseled cloth of the overmantel. The resemblance of the man in the photograph to Colin, despite the fact that he was smooth-shaven and had clear white hair, left no doubt who this was.

  No clock ticked. They spoke, instinctively, in whispers.

  “Alan Campbell,” whispered Kathryn, whose face was as pink as confectionery, “you beast!”

  “Why?”

  “In heaven’s name, don’t you realize what they’re thinking about us? And that dreadful Daily Floodlight will print anything. Don’t you mind at all?”

  Alan considered this.

  “Candidly,” he startled even himself by replying, “I don’t. My only regret is that it isn’t true.”

  Kathryn fell back a little, putting her hand on the table which held the family Bible as though to support herself. He observed, however, that her color was deeper than ever.

  “Dr Campbell! What on earth has come over you?”

  “I don’t know,” he was honest enough to admit. “I don’t know whether Scotland usually affects people like this –”

  “I should hope not!”

  “But I feel like taking down a claymore and stalking about with it. Also, I feel no end of an old rip and I am enjoying it. Has anyone ever told you, by the way, that you are an exceedingly attractive wench?”

  “Wench? You called me a wench?”

  “It is classical seventeenth-century terminology.”

  “But nothing like your precious Duchess of Cleveland, of course,” said Kathryn.