“But surely, uncle, that didn’t affect her for ever after.”
“Yes...Even if cured at the time, the pain and attendant symptoms return every year at the same period...” Nita laughed incredulously.
“But that’s ridiculous! This isn’t the Middle Ages. Modern science could soon put her right.”
“You don’t understand, my dear...”
“What is there to understand? To go on suffering from such a thing was madness...”
“Hardly. The symptoms are like those of apoplexy. My sister was very beautiful, but do you think any man would have married her, knowing she suffered from a taint like epilepsy or apoplexy...?”
“But if she were cured...?”
“The usual treatment was applied in Spain and it wasn’t until she returned to England that other measures were mentioned. I continued the treatment here. She refused to have another doctor attend her. It was like defacing her beauty, she said, to parade her infirmity. At first, the regular recurrences were easily coped with, but later, excitement sometimes caused them to return. Your father’s death brought on an attack...”
“What was the treatment?”
“Music...”
“I don’t believe it. It’s just another of your own mad ideas...”
Uncle Bernard sighed and crossed the room for one of his large volumes. He turned over the pages. “Here is an authoritative English work on Materia Medica...listen...”
He commenced to read in a dull sing-song:
“...‘Francis Mustel, a peasant, bitten by a tarantula...fell as if struck by apoplexy. Knowing the remedy, his friends fetched musicians. When the patient heard their playing, he began to revive, to sigh, to move first his feet, then his hands, then his whole body. At last, he took to dancing violently. Two hours after the music began, he sweated freely and regained perfect health. Every year at the same season, the pain and symptoms returned and they could always be averted by music. If the imminent paroxysm was not averted, he was found struck down as at first and was restored in the same way...’”
“May I see the book, sir,” asked Littlejohn.
The old man passed over the volume. It was a standard work.
“Are such patients dangerous during attacks?”
“No, Inspector. They are helpless. But, as intense emotion might bring on a fit, and, on such occasions, music and dancing restore the patient, anyone finding my sister apparently enjoying music and dancing at, let us say, a time of grief or mourning, would think her very strange. They might even...”
“If they were near and dear to the dead, they might even hate your sister and vent their rage on her for her callousness?”
“That is so.”
Nita wrung her hands and looked haggard.
“That’s how I felt about it.”
Littlejohn flung the stump of his cigar in the fire.
“To return to our other business...Do either of you think Mrs. Crake was capable of doing what rumour says she did: exposing her husband to cold night air whilst he was helpless with pneumonia and aggravating the disease till he died of it?”
The pair of them answered almost together.
“No!”
“My sister was callous about her love affairs. Many women are. The sight of the rejected lover attempting to frustrate by his pleas or actions the development of a new love, makes the woman despise and ill-treat him all the more. Dulcie was like that. But to kill, in cold blood...never...”
“Very well, sir. This...this...dancing mania, or whatever we care to call it...Who knew about the complaint?”
“Nick knew, of course. One can’t live in marriage with a sufferer from it and not find out. She had an attack shortly after they got back from their honeymoon, here. I happened to be handy and she soon recovered under the usual regimen. It was never spoken of. She refused to let Nick call in the family doctor, insisting that I take the treatment. That is why I came to live here and not, as I know Nita and Alec think, to sponge upon my relatives...”
“I’m sorry, uncle...”
“But did anyone see the dancing cure in operation, doctor? Somebody who might not have known the reason for it?”
“Elspeth has frequently seen us...And Beatrice...Beatrice came just after Dulcie lost her third and last child. She came upon us here suddenly, just as Dulcie was recovering. I had been playing...The Tarantella is the usual dance tune, significantly enough. There was a fearful scene which, for Dulcie’s sake, I could not avoid by explaining...”
Cromwell, sitting there with his bowler balanced on his knees, looked dazed. He was longing to get away and breathe the fresh air and see normal people again. This lot were quite mad! Music, dancing, tarantula spiders! What next?
“Your sister made a Will, sir?”
“Yes. She left all she had to Alec...”
Nita sprang to her feet, her eyes blazing and her cheeks flushed.
“I knew it! She always hated me. Well, he can keep it all. I don’t want her beastly money, such as it is. She hadn’t much, according to her talk. She was always pestering daddy for more.”
“She had a good reason, my dear,” said Uncle Bernard.” She knew you could always look after yourself. You’re your father’s daughter, my child...”
“I’m not a child any more. And I can look after myself...”
“Alec, she knew, never would be any good. He has his mother’s self-indulgence, irresponsibility and sensual nature. She knew he would die in the gutter or become a criminal rather than work for his living. So, the ten thousand pounds left to your mother in your father’s insurance, goes to Alec, in trust. He can’t get the lot. It’s to be invested in an annuity to make sure he doesn’t dissipate it and leave himself penniless almost at once.”
“Ten thousand pounds! Poor daddy...She never deserved him. I’m glad she’s dead. She was bad...rotten...”
“I won’t have that. She was a poor weak creature, for all her beauty.”
“I never want to hear her name spoken again!”
These family upheavals were instructive and informative in the case and the two police officers sat quietly by, listening without interruption. They might not have been there in the heat of some of the arguments.
“So, I’m to go penniless, then. I can’t understand daddy...”
“He didn’t forget you, either. This house is yours now your mother is dead.”
“What! This mausoleum! I don’t want it. You can have it, uncle. Once I go, I’ll never come back here. I hate the place. Beyle! Do you know what its real name was? What the old people round here used to call it? The House in the Lepers’ Hollow. That’s what it was called. How right they were. Now that daddy has gone the whole place seems unclean...diseased...rotten...I won’t stay another night here.”
“With the exception of his life insurance, which he always said was his duty to his widow, your father left you all he had. He knew your mother would favour Alec, so he made provision. There is probably money for you, as well. Mr. Trotman should know. He will be reading the Wills to-morrow.”
“I’ve just come from there. He said nothing.”
“Not until the family is assembled. It wouldn’t be right.”
“There won’t be any money. That’s certain. Mother screwed every penny from daddy. He’d nothing left...” She rose quickly.
“I’m going now. I’m packing my bag and leaving for London at once. I won’t even stay for the funeral. In spite of mother, real Crakes never attend family funerals. They never have done, and I’m a Crake...”
And she left the room without another word.
Littlejohn rose and Cromwell followed suit.
“Mr. Trotman was a family friend, then?”
From what he’d heard of Nicholas Crake, Littlejohn was surprised that the judge had favoured the flabby lawyer who had been in the Coroner’s court earlier that day.
“The firm always handled the family legal business. It was really Mr. Trotman’s father who was Nick’s friend. Old Samuel
. I guess when the old man died, Nick just let the son carry on. There are other partners, of course.”
“But the present Mr. Trotman deals with the estate of Nicholas Crake?”
“Yes. There’s another reason, too. Arthur Kent, who married Nick’s sister, Beatrice, is a partner in Trotman’s firm. Nick never liked Arthur. Less of late, too, since his affair with Dulcie. But perhaps for Beatrice’s sake, he put up with it.”
“We’d better call and talk to Trotman to-morrow. Mr. Crake might have left quite a sum to his daughter.”
The house was uncannily still as they rose to go. Dusk was falling and, as usual, mists were rising in the hollow. Lepers’ Hollow. Littlejohn wondered how it got its name. Certainly it was, as Nita had said, an unwholesome spot.
“What are you going to do, sir? The house is deserted. If Miss Nita leaves, there’ll be nobody to look after you.”
“I can look after myself. This is my home, if Nita will let me stay. My work is here. I couldn’t manage elsewhere. I must get on with my work...”
“Medical research, sir?”
The old man looked cunning but did not answer.
“I’ll see you to the door, gentlemen. The place rambles a little...”
Uncle Bernard rose to escort them. There was no sign or sound of Nita. They descended the stairs.
The great hall was gloomy and they could only with difficulty see their way safely down. Uncle Bernard snapped on a switch.
The mass lying just near the door had looked like a dark mat in the half-light, but now it took proper shape. It was a body, sprawling with arms and legs spread-eagled. They hurried down, the two detectives well ahead of the old man. It was another corpse, done to death this time by a savage blow from behind. Littlejohn turned over the body. Uncle Bernard was at their side. He uttered a wild cry and covered his face with his hands.
“When is it going to end...?”
“Who is it?”
“Arthur Kent!”
Littlejohn felt the cheeks. They were quite warm. The man must only just have died. He flung open the front door and looked down the drive. Not a soul in sight. He ran round the house, struggling through the riot of briars and weeds, but found nobody about.
Then, he and Cromwell began a systematic search of the rooms on the ground floor. They were shabby and cold. One of them, a large dining-room, with its long mahogany dining-table and tall tapestry chairs, must have been lovely in its good days. Now...moths and cobwebs. The whole ground floor was deserted.
“They’d have had to pass the door of the room we were in to get anywhere else,” said Cromwell after they had entered the first two rooms on the upper corridor and found nothing. “And Mr. Bernard’s door was open all the time. It even looks on the servants’ staircase to the attics. By the way, where’s Miss Nita...?”
She might have heard his question, for she appeared at a door farther down the passage.
“Do you want me?”
“Have you seen anybody about since you left us, Miss Crake?” asked Littlejohn.
“What’s the matter?”
“Your uncle, Mr. Kent...We’ve just found him dead in the hall. He has been murdered...”
She dropped the bundle she was holding.
“Another...?”
And then she burst into uncontrolled laughter, high pitched and hysterical. Littlejohn hurried to her and shook her hard.
“Come, come. This won’t do. Pull yourself together. Did you see anybody...?”
“No. No...”
She said it quickly, evasively, and Littlejohn knew she was lying.
“You saw someone and I want to know who it was. Now...tell me, Miss Crake.”
“She’d nothing to do with it...I won’t tell you. Go away and leave me.”
“Not till you tell me whom you saw.”
Uncle Bernard was back. He had climbed the stairs soundlessly and was standing listening, expecting the worst.
“Tell them, Nita. It won’t do any good. Was it Alec?”
“No. I might have mistaken the car. It went away before I...before I...”
“Whose car was it?”
“Uncle Arthur’s...”
“Did you see him come here?”
“Yes...I saw his car at the gate as I was resting in the morning-room. Then it went away...”
“You knew he wasn’t driving it. Who was in it with him? Was it your Aunt Beatrice?”
Her eyes opened wide.
“She didn’t do it...She couldn’t...She wouldn’t.”
“But you saw her in the car and you saw her drive off later...”
“She was going through the gate...It was getting dark...I must have been mistaken...”
“So, it was your Aunt Beatrice...?”
For answer the girl screamed and lapsed into hysterics again.
“Look after her, sir,” Littlejohn said to Uncle Bernard and then he and Cromwell went round the house and locked doors and windows.
“And now, you will both come with me and stay elsewhere than here for the night,” he said to Doane and his niece when they got back. Nita was weeping but calm and the old man moved like someone in a dream.
“You’d better come with us and we’ll find you some place for the night...In the circumstances, it had better not be the Kents’ home.”
“Better try the Trotmans,” said Uncle Bernard and lapsed into stunned silence.
They telephoned for the local police and soon a sergeant, two constables and the doctor arrived. Bastable looked ready to do a lot of talking but Littlejohn gently waved him aside and indicated Nita and Uncle Bernard, waiting mutely to leave with him. The old man was wearing his astrakhan coat and holding the top-hat he’d worn at the funeral. Littlejohn took it from him and changed it for a soft felt.
“Where’s the Superintendent?” he asked the sergeant.
“He’s been out since the inquest. I left a message...”
“I’ll be back as soon as I’ve made a call or two and seen Dr. Doane and Miss Nita safely somewhere.”
The sergeant looked up at Uncle Bernard and smiled. Dr. Doane. That was a new one! Balmy Bernard was the name they knew him by locally.
“O.K.,” he said, forgetting his place for a minute.
Uncle Bernard was fussing and trying to get a word in.
“Give me my own hat; this isn’t mine. It’s too big for me.”
Littlejohn could have laughed outright at the sight of him, the opulent-looking homburg down to his ears. He gave Uncle Bernard back his topper and the old man flung the felt back on the hat-stand.
“We’re ready...”
Seven – Commotion at St. Mark’s
CROMWELL summed it all up in his customary fashion.
“Two murders and not a pot washed!”
They pulled up at the studded oak door of St. Mark’s and Littlejohn rang the bell. They were certainly there whilst the news of Arthur Kent’s murder was fresh. It was going to be Littlejohn’s duty to tell his widow of his death.
A cheerful, red-faced girl opened the door.
“Come in. I’ll tell Mrs. Kent you’re calling...”
Beatrice Kent came to meet them at once. Littlejohn felt sorry for her. She had been utterly devoted to her brother, he’d been told, and now she looked to have taken the judge’s death very badly. All her colour had gone and her complexion was like parchment. Her fine dark eyes were feverishly bright in their shadowed sockets, as though she wasn’t sleeping well.
“May we have a word with you in private, madam?”
“Is it about my brother...?”
That was apparently all she thought of.
She led the way into a small cosy morning-room where a bright fire was burning and offered them a chair apiece. Then she sat on the edge of a small sewing-chair as if she didn’t intend staying long.
“Yes...?”
“I’m sorry to have to tell you, Mrs. Kent, that your husband has met with an accident...”
The impact of the news was not
very marked. Beatrice Kent rose and stood relaxed, ready to sit again when the tale had been told.
“Is he...is it serious...?”
“I’m afraid he’s dead, madam.”
She seemed more puzzled than distressed.
“But I left him not more than half an hour ago. I dropped him at the gates of Beyle House. He was going to see the children about their plans. I was driving home and gave him a lift from town to Beyle...”
“Did you go in the house, Mrs. Kent?”
“No...”
“May I ask why? You were their aunt, weren’t you?”
“Yes; I was their nearest relative. But Beyle has been extremely distasteful to me for many years. I never got on with my late sister-in-law, and stopped calling. I saw no reason for resuming it. Nita and I are friends, but Alec and I have nothing in common.”
“I...By the way, madam, if you don’t feel up to answering questions at present, please say so. We can call again.”
“Please go on, Inspector. I’m waiting to learn how my husband met his death. Was it a road accident?”
“No. He was murdered! Struck down on the threshold of Beyle House...”
That did it! Mrs. Kent sat down overcome. It had seemed previously that her face could not turn paler. Now, the remnants of blood drained away, leaving her the colour of putty.
“No...No!...No!!”
She was losing control. She’d been through so much in the past days that the limit had been reached. Out in the hall they could hear Margery, the maid, talking on the telephone in muffled tones. The milkman had rung up to ask her to go to the pictures. Cromwell hastily called her and asked her for some brandy. Margery, torn between her milkman and her mistress, decided in favour of the latter, told the phone she’d ring back later, rushed to the dining-room and returned with a bottle.
“What’s the matter?”
“Mrs. Kent isn’t very well...”
“What have you been doing to her...?”
Margery, still brandishing the three-star bottle, took her mistress in her arms and pressed her head to her ample bosom.
“There, there, Mrs. Kent. Whatever is it?”
“Mr. Kent...your master...is dead. He’s been murdered...”
Crime In Leper's Hollow Page 8
