The Hollow Man Part 6

The secretary frowned. 'I cannot say. I have heard it mentioned that Dr Grimaud knew him at Paris, where he studied. That is the only bit of information I have except one remark which Dr Grimaud made when he had, let us say, imbibed a convivial gla.s.s.' A superior kind of smile curved round Mills's mouth without opening it; his eyes narrowed, and gleamed in drowsy satire. 'Hum! He stated that Mr Drayman had once saved his life, and described him as the best d.a.m.ned good fellow in the world. Of course, under the circ.u.mstances - '

Mills had a jerky trick of putting one foot before the other, rocking, and tapping the toe of one shoe with the heel of the other. With his jerky movements, tiny figure, and big shock of hair, he was like a caricature of Swinburne. Dr Fell looked at him curiously. But Dr Fell only said: 'So? And why don't you like him?'

'I neither like nor dislike him. But he does nothing.'

'Is that why Miss Grimaud doesn't like him, either?'

'Miss Grimaud does not like him?' said Mills, opening his eyes and then narrowing them. 'Yes, I had fancied that. I watched, but I could not be certain.'

'H'mf. And why is he so interested in Guy Fawkes night?'

'Guy Fa - Ah!' Mills broke off in his surprise, and uttered a flat bleat of laughter. ' I see! I did not follow. You see, he is very fond of children. He had two children of his own, who were killed - by the falling of a roof, I believe, some years ago. It was one of those foolish, petty tragedies which we shall eliminate when we build the bigger, greater, more s.p.a.cious world of the future.' At this point in the recital Dr Fell's face was murderous, but Mills went on: 'His wife did not survive long. Then he began to lose his sight... He likes to help the children in all their games, and has himself a somewhat childish mind in spite of certain mental qualities.' The fish lip lifted a little. ' His favourite occasion seems to be the Fifth of November, which was the birthday of one of his unfortunate progeny. He saves up throughout the year to buy illuminations and trappings, and builds a Guy for a - procession to -'

A sharp knocking at the door was followed by the appearance of Sergeant Preston.

'There's n.o.body downstairs, sir,' he reported. 'That gentleman you wanted to see must have left... A chap from the nursing - home just brought this over for you.'

He handed over an envelope and a square cardboard box like a jeweller's box. Hadley ripped open the letter, glanced down it, and swore.

'He's gone,' snapped Hadley, 'and not a word ... Here, read this!'

Rampole looked over Dr Fell's shoulder as the latter read.

'For Superintendent Hadley: 'Poor Grimaud died at 11.30. I am sending you the bullet. It's a thirty - eight, as I thought. I tried to get in touch with your police surgeon, but he was out on another case, and so I am sending it to you.

'He was conscious just before the end. He said certain things which can be attested by two of my nurses and myself; but he might have been wandering and I should be careful of them. I knew him pretty well, but I certainly never knew he had a brother.

'First he said he wished to tell me about it; then he spoke exactly as follows: '"It was my brother who did it. I never thought he would shoot. G.o.d knows how he got out of that room. One second he was there, and the next he wasn't. Get a pencil and paper, quick! want to tell you who my brother is, so that you won't think I'm raving."

'His shouting brought in the final haemorrhage, and he died without saying anything else. I am holding the body subject to your orders. If there is any help I can give, let me know.

E. H. PETERSON, M.D.'.

They all looked at each other. The puzzle stood rounded and complete; the facts stood confirmed and the witnesses vindicated; but the terror of the hollow man remained. After a pause the superintendent spoke in a heavy voice.

"'G.o.d knows," repeated Hadley, '"how he got out of that room."

SECOND COFFIN.

The Problem of Cagliostro Street

CHAPTER 9.

THE BREAKING GRAVE.

DR FELL walked over aimlessly, sighed, and settled himself down in the largest chair. 'Brother Henri - ' he rumbled. ' H'mf, yes. I was afraid we should get back to Brother Henri.'

'd.a.m.n Brother Henri,' said Hadley in a flat voice. 'We're going after Brother Pierre first. He knows! Why haven't I had any message from that constable? Where's the man who was to pick him up at that theatre? Have the whole blasted lot of them gone to sleep and -'

'We mustn't get the wind up about this thing,' interposed the other, as Hadley began to stamp and declaim rather wildly. 'That's exactly what Brother Henri would want us to do. Now that we've got Grimaud's last statement, we've at least got one clue ...'

'To what?'

'To the words he spoke to us, the ones we couldn't make any sense of. The unfortunate point is that they may not help us now that we can hazard a theory as to what they mean. With this new evidence, I'm afraid we were listening to Grimaud running up a blind alley. He wasn't telling us anything; he was only trying to ask us a question.'

'What's all this?'

'Don't you see that's exactly what he must have been doing? Last statement: "G.o.d knows how he got out of that room. One second he was there and the next he wasn't." Now let's try to sort out the words from that invaluable note - book of yours. You and friend Ted have slightly different versions; but we'll begin with the words on which you both agree and which we must a.s.sume to be correct. Put aside the first puzzlers - I think we can now feel safe in saying that the words were "Horvath" and "salt - mine". Put aside also the terms on which you do not agree. What words are found in both lists?'

Hadley snapped his fingers. ' I begin to - Yes! The words are, "He couldn't use rope. Roof. Snow. Fox. Too much light." Well, then! If we try to make a composite statement, fit together the words and the sense of both statements; we have his meaning as something like this: "G.o.d knows how he got out. He couldn't use a rope, either up to the roof or down in the snow. One second he was there, and the next he wasn't. There was too much light for me to miss any move he made -" Stop a bit, though! What about -'

'And now,' said Dr Fell, with a disgusted grunt, 'you can begin to fit in the differences. Ted heard, "not suicide". That goes into the picture as an a.s.surance to accord with the other expressions. "This isn't suicide; I didn't kill myself." You heard, "Got gun"; which isn't difficult to tie up with the sentence out of the other statement, "I never thought he would shoot." BAH! All the clues whirl straight round in a circle and become questions. It's the first case I ever heard of in which the murdered man was just as inquisitive as everybody else.'

'But what about the word "fox"? That doesn't fit anywhere.'

Dr Fell regarded him with a sour twinkle in his eye.

'Oh, yes, it does. It's the easiest part of all - though it may be the trickiest, and we mustn't jump to conclusions about applying it. It's a matter of how words strike the ear when they're not spelled out. If I'm using the word - a.s.sociation test (that d.a.m.ned thing) on various people and I suddenly whisper, "Fox!" to a horseman, he will probably answer, "Hounds!" But if I use the same word on a historian, he is likely to yell - quick! What?'

'Guy,' said Hadley, and swore. After a lurid interval he demanded: 'Do you mean that we come back to some babbling about a Guy Fawkes mask, or the resemblance to a Guy Fawkes mask?'

'Well, everybody else has been doing a tall amount of babbling about it,' the doctor pointed out, scratching his forehead. 'And I'm not surprised it struck the eye of somebody who saw it at somewhat closer quarters. Does that tell you anything?'

'It tells me to have a little talk with Mr Drayman,' said the superintendent, grimly. He strode towards the door, and was startled to find the bony face of Mills poked out in eager listening against the thick gla.s.ses.

'Steady, Hadley,' Dr Fell interposed as the superintendent gave indications of an explosion. ' It's a queer thing about you: you can be as steady as the Guards when riddles - are flying, but you never seem able to keep your s.h.i.+rt on when we get within sight of the truth. Let our young friend stop. He should hear all this, if only to hear the end of it.' He chuckled. 'Does that make you suspicious of Drayman? Pfaa! On the contrary, it should be just the opposite, Remember, we haven't quite finished putting the pieces in our jig - saw. There's one last bit we haven't accounted for, and it was a bit you heard yourself. That pink mask suggested Drayman to Grimaud, just as he seems to have been suggested to several others. But Grimaud knew whose face was behind the mask. Therefore we have a fairly sensible explanation of those final words you noted down, "Don't blame poor -" He seems to have had a great liking for Drayman, you know.' After a silence, Dr Fell turned to Mills, 'Now go and fetch him up here, son.'

When the door had closed, Hadley sat down wearily and took from his breast - pocket the frayed cigar he had not yet lighted. Then he ran a finger round under his collar with that malevolent, broken - necked expression which people have when worry makes them think the collar is too tight.

'More trick marksmans.h.i.+p, eh?' he suggested. 'More deductive tight - rope work, and the daring young man on the - um!' He stared at the floor, and then grunted with annoyance. ' I must be losing my grip! It's no good getting fantastic notions like the one I just had. Have you got any concrete suggestions?'

'Yes. Later, if you'll permit it, I am going to apply Gross's test.'

'Apply what?'

'Gross's test. Don't you remember? We were arguing about it tonight. I'm going to collect very carefully all the ma.s.s of burnt and half - burnt paper in that fire - place, to see whether Gross's test will bring out the writing. Be quiet, will you?' he roared, as Hadley made scornful noises. 'I don't say all of it, or even half of it, will come out. But I should get a line here and there to give me a hint about what was more important to Grimaud than saving his own life. Purph! Hah! Yes.'

'And how do you work this trick?'

'You'll see. Mind, I don't say that thoroughly burnt paper will come out satisfactorily. But there'll be something, especially in the charred parts sandwiched in and only scorched black, that will come out ... Aside from that, I haven't a suggestion, unless we ask - yes, what is it?'

Sergeant Betts, not quite so plastered with snow this time, made his report woodenly. He looked out of the door behind him before he closed it.

'I've been all over that back - garden, sir. And the two adjoining ones, and the tops of all the walls. There's no footprint or any kind of mark ... But I believe we've caught a fish, Preston and I. As I was coming back through the house, down the stairs comes running a tallish old bloke, plunging away with his hand on the banister rail. He ran over to a clothes closet, and banged about as though he wasn't familiar with the place, until he got his overcoat and hat, and then made for the door. He says his name's Drayman and that he lives here, but we thought -'

'I think you'll find that his sight isn't any too good,' said Dr Fell. 'Send him in.'

The man who entered was, in his own way, an impressive figure. His long, quiet face was hollowed at the temples; his grey hair grew far back on the skull, giving him a great height of narrow and wrinkled forehead. His bright - blue eyes, which did not at all seem dimmed despite the wrinkles round them, looked gentle and puzzled. He had a hooked nose, and deep furrows running down to a kindly, uncertain mouth; and his trick of wrinkling the forehead, so that one eyebrow was slightly raised, made him look more uncertain still. Despite his stoop he was still tall; despite his bony frailty he was still powerful. He looked like a military man gone senile, a well - brushed man gone slovenly. There was nothing of - humour in the face, but a great deal of muddled and apologetic good - nature. He wore a dark overcoat b.u.t.toned up to the chin. Standing in the doorway, peering hard at them from under tangled eyebrows, he held a bowler hat pressed against his chest, and hesitated.

'I am sorry, gentlemen. I am honestly very sorry,' he said. His deep voice had a curious quality as though the man were unused to speech. 'I know I should have come to see you before going over there. But young Mr Mangan woke me up to tell me what had happened. I felt I had to go over and see Grimaud, to see whether there might be anything I could do -'

Rampole had a feeling that he was still dull - witted and uncertain from sleep or sleeping - drugs; that the bright glare of his eyes might have been so much gla.s.s. He moved over, and one hand found the back of a chair. But he did not sit down until Hadley asked him to do so.

'Mr Mangan told me -' he said,' Dr Grimaud -'

'Dr Grimaud is dead,' said Hadley.

Drayman remained sitting as bolt upright as his stoop would allow, his hands folded across his hat. There was a heavy silence in the room, while Drayman shut his eyes and opened them again. Then he seemed to stare a long way off, and to breathe with heavy, whistling sluggishness.

'G.o.d rest his soul,' Drayman said, very quietly. 'Charles Grimaud was a good friend.'

'Do you know how he died?'

'Yes. Mr Mangan told me.'

Hadley studied him. 'Then you will understand that to tell everything, everything you might happen to know, will be the only way to help us catch the murderer of your friend?'

'I - Yes, of course.'

'Be very certain of that, Mr Drayman! More certain than you are. We wish to know something of his past life. You knew him well. Where did you first know him?'

The other's long face looked muddled; an illusion as though the features had got out of line. 'In Paris. He took his doctorate at the university in 1905, the same year I - the same year I knew him.' Facts seemed to elude Drayman; he shaded his eyes with his hand, and his voice had a querulous note like a man asking where somebody has hidden his collar studs. 'Grimaud was very brilliant. He obtained an a.s.sociate professors.h.i.+p at Dijon the year afterwards. But a relative died, or something of the sort, and left him well provided for. He - he gave up his work and came to England shortly afterwards. Or so I understand. I did not see him until years afterwards. Was that what you wished to know?'

'Did you ever know him before 1905?'

'No.'

Hadley leaned forward. 'Where did you save his life?' he asked, sharply.

'Save his life? I don't understand.'

'Ever visit Hungary, Mr Drayman?'

'I - I have travelled on the Continent, and I may have been in Hungary. But that was years ago, when I was young. I don't remember.'

And now it was Hadley's turn to pull the trigger in trick marksmans.h.i.+p.

'You saved his life,' he stated, 'near the prison of Siebenturmen, in the Carpathian Mountains, when he was escaping. Didn't you?'

The other sat upright, his bony hands clenched across the bowler. Rampole had a feeling that there was more dogged strength in him now than there had been for a dozen years.

'Did I?' he said.

'There's no use going on with this. We know everything - even to dates, now that you've supplied them. Karoly Horvath, as a free man, wrote the date in a book in 1898. With full academic preparation behind, it would have taken him four years at least to get his doctorate at Paris.

We can narrow down the time of his conviction and escape to three years. With that information,' said Hadley coolly, 'I can cable to Bucarest and get the full details within twelve hours. You had better tell the truth, you see. I want to know all you know of Karoly Horvath - and his two brothers. One of those two brothers killed him. Finally, I'll remind you that withholding information of this kind is a serious offence. Well?'

Drayman remained for a little time with his hand shading his eyes, his foot tapping the carpet. Then he looked up. They were startled to see that, though his puckered eyes kept their blue gla.s.siness, the man was gently smiling.

'A serious offence,' he repeated, and nodded. 'Is it, indeed? Now frankly, sir, I don't give a d.a.m.n for your threats. There are very few things which can move or anger or terrify a man who can see you only in outline, as he sees a poached egg on his plate. Nearly all the fears of the world (and its ambitions too) are caused by shapes - eyes and gestures and figures. Young people can't understand this, but I had hoped you would. You see, I am not precisely blind. I can see faces and the morning sky, and all those objects which the poets insist blind men should rave about. But I cannot read, and the faces I cared most to see have been for eight years blinder than mine. Wait until your whole life is built on those two things, and you will learn that not much can move you when they go.' He nodded again, staring across the room. His forehead wrinkled. ' Sir, I am perfectly willing to give you any information you wish, if it will help Charles Grimaud. But I don't see the sense of raking up old scandal.'

'Not even to find the brother who killed him?'

Drayman made a slight gesture, frowning. 'Look here, if it will help you, I can honestly tell you to forget such an idea. I don't know how you learned it. He did have two brothers. And they were imprisoned.' He smiled again. 'There was nothing terrible about it. They were imprisoned for a political offence. I imagine half the young fire - eaters of the time must have been concerned in it ... Forget the two brothers. They have both been dead a good many years.'

It was so quiet in the room that Rampole heard the last collapsing rattle of the fire and the wheezing breaths of Dr Fell. Hadley glanced at Dr Fell, whose eyes were closed. Then Hadley regarded Drayman as impa.s.sively as though the latter's sight had been sharp.

'How do you know that?'

'Grimaud told me,' said the other, accentuating the name. ' Besides, all the newspapers from Budapest to Bra.s.so were shouting about it at the time. You can easily verify all this.' He spoke simply. 'They died of bubonic plague.'

Hadley was suave. 'If, of course, you could prove this beyond any doubt - '

'You promise that there would be no old scandal raked up?' (That bright - blue stare was difficult to meet. Drayman twisted and untwisted his bony hands.) 'If I tell you exactly, and you receive the proof, you will let the dead rest?'

'It depends on your information.'

'Very well. I will tell you what I saw myself.' He reflected - rather uneasily - Rampole thought. ' It was in its own way a horrible business. Grimaud and I never spoke of it afterwards. That was agreed. But I don't intend to lie to you and say I've forgotten it - any detail of it.'

He was silent for so long a time, tapping his fingers at his temple, that even the patient Hadley was about to prompt him. Then he went on: 'Excuse me, gentlemen. I was trying to remember the exact date, so that you can verify everything. The best I can do is to say it was in August or September of nineteen hundred - or was it nineteen one? Anyhow, it occurs to me that I might begin, with perfect truth, exactly in the style of the contemporary French romances. I might begin, "Towards dusk of a cool September day in the year 19 - a solitary horseman might have been seen hurrying along a road," and what a devil of a road! - "in a rugged valley below the south - eastern Carpathians." Then I should launch into a description of the wild scenery and so on. I was the horseman; it was coming on to rain, and I was trying to reach Tradj before dark.'

He smiled. Hadley stirred in some impatience, though Dr Fell opened his eyes; and Drayman was quick to take it up.

'I must insist on that sort of novelesque atmosphere because it fitted into my mood and explains so much. I was at the romantic Byronic age, fired with ideas of political liberty. I rode horseback instead of walking because I thought I cut a good figure; I even took pleasure in carrying a pistol against (mythical) brigands, and a rosary as a charm against ghosts. But if there weren't either ghosts or brigands, there should have been. I know that I several times got the wind up about both. There was a sort of fairy - tale wildness and darkness about those cold forests and gorges. Even about the cultivated parts there was something queer. Transylvania, you see, is shadowed in on three sides by mountains. It startles an English eye to see a rye - field or a vineyard going straight up the side of a steep hill; the red mill yellow costumes, the garlicky inns, and even, in the bleaker parts, hills made of pure salt.

'Anyhow, there I was going along a snaky road in the bleakest part, with a storm blowing up and no inn for miles. People saw the devil lurking behind every hedge in a way that gave me the creeps, but I had a worse cause for the creeps. Plague had broken out after a hot summer, and was over the whole area like a cloud of gnats, even in the chilly weather. In the last village I pa.s.sed through - I've forgotten its name - they told me it was raging at the salt - mines in the mountains ahead. But I was hoping to meet an English friend of mine, also a tourist, at Tradj. Also I wanted to look the prison which got its name after seven white hills, like ft low range of mountains, just behind. So I said I meant to go on.

'I knew - I must be getting near the prison, for I could see the while hills ahead. But, just as it was getting too dark to see at all, and the wind seemed to be tearing the trees to pieces, I came down into a hollow past the three graves. They had been freshly dug, for there were still footmarks round them; but no living person was in sight.'

Hadley broke across the queer atmosphere which that dreaming voice was beginning to create.

'A place,' he said, 'just like the one in the painting Dr Grimaud bought from Mr Burnaby.'

'I - I don't know,' answered Drayman evidently startled.' Is it? I didn't notice.'

'Didn't notice? Didn't you see the picture?'

'Not very well. Just a general outline - trees, ordinary landscape -'

'And three headstones - '

'I don't know where Burnaby got his inspiration,' the other said dully, and rubbed his forehead. 'G.o.d knows I never told him. It's probably a coincidence; there were no headstones over these graves. They wouldn't have bothered. There were simply three crosses made of sticks.