Frequent Hearses Part 4

And by a quarter to ten he and Judy were in sanctuary at Lanthorn House.

All that night the windows of Lanthorn House blazed with light, and there was a confused, interminable coming and going of doctors, policemen and, in the last stages, newspaper reporters. Fen, having made sure that Judy was safe and unharmed, grew irritable at the inconclusiveness of what was being done, and departed in Lily Christine shortly after midnight; his adventure had left him feeling distinctly unwell, and his interest in the case was submerged in an overwhelming desire to go home and to bed. But the routine of investigation went on until daybreak. At the start, Humbleby was in charge of it; he had been summoned from London and had driven to Aylesbury with all possible speed. Latterly, however, he was absent, since at two in the morning a distraught Inspector Berkeley telephoned through from Doon Island to tell him that Madge Crane was dead.

At five oaclock on the afternoon of the following day, which was the Wednesday, Fen sat and drank tea with Humbleby in Humblebyas room at New Scotland Yard.

It was a small room, solidly but austerely furnished. Its windows, high up in a corner of the building, looked towards Parliament and the river. A small but vehement gas-fire warmed it. Humbleby was in the swivel-chair behind the broad oak desk, and Fen, his head bandaged in a needlessly dramatic and elaborate fas.h.i.+on, was in the chair reserved for visitors, his long legs resting irreverently on a corner of the desk. Fen is exigent in the matter of sympathy for his afflictions, but he knew that at the moment it was Humbleby who deserved commiseration, and he did not, therefore, as in minor discomforts he normally does, adopt the air and hollow tones of a man precariously convalescing after a severe operation. Instead, he eyed Humbleby compa.s.sionately, noting the pallor of his face, the strained lines of his mouth, the blue suffusions of sleeplessness under his eyes, the dishevelment of his usually neat grey hair and the soiled, creased condition of his clothes. Humbleby had laced their tea with rum, and he drank greedily, exhaustedly, gazing out over sooty roofs into the grey March afternoon.

aIave just been to see the A.C.,a he said. aHe was extremely pleasant, but now Madge Crane has been murdered the case will be front-page news until itas solvedaa"he nodded towards the heap of evening papers in front of hima"aand in those circ.u.mstances I quite realised theyad have to take it away from me. Nothing less than a Chief Inspector will do now. Chichley. Do you know him?a Fen shook his head.

aA nice fellow, and very able. Still, itas disappointing. The A.C. made it clear that the transfer didnat const.i.tute any criticism of me; as he said, I simply havenat had the time to get down to anything yet. But just the samea"a aDispiriting, yes,a said Fen; he was fond of Humbleby and thought it a great pity that because of Madge Craneas stardom he should have to be elbowed out. aHow long have you got?a aBefore Chichley takes over? A few hours, I dare say. I really canat discuss the details with him till Iave had some sleep.a aIt might,a said Fen, abe possible to wind up the case today.a aI wish I could believe that, but Iam afraid youare too optimistic.a aPerhaps. But shall we make the attempt? Or are you too tired to discuss things for half an hour or so?a aNo. Iam not too tired. Weall do that. And if you can throw any light on this business, Iall be eternally grateful. Itas not a question of promotiona"I could have had that years ago if Iad wanted it. Itas just that I detest leaving any job half-done.a Fen nodded. aUnderstandable,a he said briskly. aLet me get my information up to date, then. Nicholas first, and then Madge.a aRight.a Humbleby finished his tea, leaned back and lit a cheroot. aAs far as I can see, Iave uncovered all the really important facts. I left Doon Island at midday today, you understand, and called in at Lanthorn House before coming back here.a aAnd you talked to the girl?a aTo Miss Flecker, you mean? Yes, I did.a aHow is she?a aQuite recovered, Iam glad to say. And very anxious to see you and thank you for rescuing her. Sheas gone back to her flat, and a woman friend is going to sleep with her for a few nights, until sheas recovered from the shock.a aHer unconsciousness was just a faint, I take it.a aYes. She must have been horribly overwrought, so itas not surprising. Brave of her to chase after this fellow, but scarcely sensible. Howevera she hasnat, Iam afraid, the smallest notion who it was.a aAnd Eleanor Cranea"did you talk to her?a aNot a chance of it. The doctors werea"uma"adamant. Extraordinary, the way she collapsed when she heard Nicholas was dead.a aShe was very fond of him, then?a aDoted on him, it seems, though she took care never to show it. And the consequence is that now sheas a dangerous hysteric.a aYes,a said Fen. aLetas get down to business, then. I gather that Nicholas returned to Lanthorn House shortly after eight. Where had he been?a aGetting an early dinner in Aylesbury. Apparently he travelled there and back by bus. Eating out, you realise, was one of the precautions he was taking against poison.a aQuite so. And now, the murder and the business in the Maze. Alibis, to start with. How about the people at Lanthorn House?a aExcept for the servants, theyare none of them exempt. Eleanor Crane is a.s.sumed to have been indoors all the time, but thereas no proof of it, or, rather, so little that itas almost valueless. Medesco left at half-past seven to drive back to London, anda"a aMedesco?a Humbleby explained Medescoas status in the household, a status of which Fen had not hitherto been aware. aIt seems,a he said in conclusion, athat the fellow wasnat actually staying there, but head developed the habit of travelling down quite often and spending the daya I donat know where these people get all their petrol from.a Humbleby sighed. aOr, rather, I do.a aAnd David?a aHe left the house, on foot, shortly after Medesco, at about twenty to eight. According to his own incoherent account, he jumped idiotically to the conclusion that as Miss Flecker hadnat turned up punctually she wasnat coming at alla"had deliberately stood him up, in fact. So he went out for a walk in the rain, ostensibly to nurse his wounded pride, and didnat get back from it, as you know, till just before ten. Not at all a reasonable way to carry on, but then, he strikes me as being an exceptionally stupid person.a aMama Well now, the murder itself. What about the knife?a aAn oversized boy-scout affair, not specially uncommon. It had been ground razor-sharp. No fingerprints.a aNicholas fired a shot. Do you think he wounded his man?a aIam certain he didnat. We found the bullet in a tree-trunk.a aA pity. The footprints?a aSize nine in menasa"a very popular size, unluckily. Iam still waiting for the detailed report to come in, and itas our best bet at present, because it will certainly give us height and weight, and that will mean only a few hundred thousand suspects instead of several million.a aCome, come,a said Fen. aThatas surely far too gloomy a view. One can a.s.sume, I imagine, that it was someone Nicholas knew.a Humbleby gave him Judyas account of the incident, and ended by saying: aYes, I suppose Nicholasas shout of aSo youare thea"a does suggest someone he knew.a aAnd his casual ah.e.l.lo! Enjoying the weather?a must mean it was someone he wasnat surprised at finding in the grounds.a aWell, no, thereas a snag there, Iam afraid. According to Miss Flecker those words werenat spoken casually. They were spoken nastily, as if Nicholas knew straight off why the person was waiting there. So if you think about it youall realise that it neednat necessarily have been someone who had a right in the grounds.a aYes, I see,a said Fen slowly. aDo you think it was a man?a aThereas no conclusive proofa"unless you count the footprints, which after all might have been made by a woman wearing a manas shoesa"but in view of the head-on way Nicholas was knifed I canat believe any woman did it.a aI quite agree. We do make progress, then. A man whom Nicholas knew, of the height and weight the footprints report will specify.a aItas a start,a Humbleby admitted without enthusiasm.

aAnd now,a said Fen, atell me about Madge.a Humblebyas narrative was clear and to the point. Like Maurice, Madge had been killed by colchicine, but in her case the poison had been introduced into a decanter of gin, some of which she had drunk at about nine oaclock the previous evening; and she had died at one-thirty a.m. It seemed that in spite of her protests she had secretly been glad of the surveillance organised by Inspector Berkeley; and the strictness of that surveillance made it quite certain that after nine p.m. on the Monday, when the watch was inaugurated, there had been no opportunity whatever for poisoning the gin. Moreover, at lunch-time on the Monday it was certainly innocuous, since some of it had been drunk without ill-effect. That left some eight hours of the afternoon and early evening to be accounted for. For most of the period Madge Crane had herself been in the sitting-room where the gin was kept, but between six and seven she had gone out for a walk, leaving her secretary, Miss Oughtred, in charge.

aThe Oughtred woman,a said Humbleby, ais a sad case. Iam tolerably certain Madge Crane bullied her abominably, but in spite of that sheas horribly upset by the girlas death. And since in a way she was responsible for that death, you seea"a aI donat see at all,a Fen interposed. aHow was she responsible?a aWell, she gave Madge to understand that the cottage hadnat been left unguarded for a second, when in fact it had beena"and for very much more than a second. And Madge, as Iave told you, was a great deal more nervous of being poisoned than she pretended: Mauriceas death must have shaken her up. So if the Oughtred woman hadnat lied to her, stating that shead never left the cottage, Madge would probably never have touched the gin, or any other food and drink that could have been tampered with while the cottage was empty. She fooled Berkeley into thinking that she didnat believe in the possibility of an attempt to murder her, but from what the Oughtred woman says, she was really rather frightened.a aBut why,a Fen asked, adid Miss Oughtred lie to her?a Humbleby groaned. aBelieve it or not, Miss Oughtred was having an affair with the Doon Island butchera If youad seen the poor plain creaturea"she must be forty at leasta"youad find that barely credible; but Iave checked it and itas true. So as soon as Madge went off for her walk, Miss Oughtred slipped out, met her butcher and stayed with him at least half an hour. She was supposed to be getting the dinner, but apparently it was the sort that doesnat need watching while it cooks. She got back to the cottage ahead of Madge, and not unnaturally didnat mention her rendezvous; she knew Madge would not only sneer at her pathetic liaison, but also put a stop to it. Madge was that sort of person. So she kept silent. And now Madge is dead, of course, and as Miss Oughtred realises that the colchicine must have been put in the gin while she was away spooning between six and seven on Monday evening, the poor wretch is in a terrible state about it.a aOur murderer does get about the country, doesnat he?a said Fen thoughtfully. aDo you think itas possible he has an accomplice?a aI think itas very unlikely indeed.a aSo do I. Do you think he has a private aeroplane?a aAn aeroplane?a aIam not being facetious.a aNo, of course I donat think he has a private aeroplane. Or if he has, he certainly wouldnat use it for flying about from murder to murder. Too conspicuous altogether.a aYes. I quite agree. How long does it take to get from Doon Island to Lanthorn House, or vice versaa"aeroplanes apart?a aThree hours,a said Humbleby, awould be the minimum.a Fen took his feet off the desk and stood up.

aAnd that being so,a he said, ayou can arrest a certain gentleman straight awaya"provided, of course, that you ignore the possibility of an accomplice, which I think youad be quite right to do. The point isa"a He broke off as a new thought occurred to him.

aNo, Iam being a bit previous,a he said. aItas not quite watertighta What time did you get to Lanthorn House on Monday evening?a aAbout eight.a aAnd David Crane was there at that time?a aYes.a aSo he couldnat possibly have been on Doon Island between six and seven, poisoning the gin decanter.a aNo. Nor could Medesco, nor Nicholas, nor Eleanor Crane.a aThen it is watertight. And the answera"a The telephone rang, and Humbleby picked it up in no very good humour at the untimely interruption. But as he listened, his impatience vanished; and when, after a few words of warm commendation, he rang off, his tiredness had vanished and he was exultant. aGot him!a he said.

Fen smiled. aA confession? Heas been so careless that Iave often wondered if he meant to give himself up as soon as Gloria Scott was avenged.a aNo, not a confession. Something even more conclusive. You remember you advised me to circularise the stewardesses of pa.s.senger-s.h.i.+ps which berthed in this country about two years ago in the hope that one of them would recognise Gloria Scottas photograph?a aI remember,a said Fen sardonically. aAt the time, you gave it as your considered opinion that my brain was softening.a Humbleby grinned, his cheroot at a rakish, triumphant angle between his teeth. aI apologise,a he said unapologetically. aI abase myselfa And thatas very generous of me, because as a matter of fact I did act on your suggestion. And itas worked.a aAll my suggestions work,a said Fen smugly.

aGloria Scott,a said Humbleby, with the air of one who recites intoxicating poetry, alanded at Liverpool on February 19th, 1947, from the S.S. Cape Castle, which had brought her and her mother from South Africa. The stewardess who looked after them on the voyage retired a year ago and went to live in the western Highlands; and since she reads no newspaper but The Scotsman, and The Scotsman was not one of the papers that published Gloria Scottas picture, she wasnat in the least aware that she knew anything which could help us. Mother and daughter kept to their cabin almost the whole time, so the other pa.s.sengers saw next to nothing of them. But this Mrs. MacCutcheon, the stewardess, necessarily saw a good deal of them, and she remembers the couple perfectly. On that voyage, I need hardly tell you, Gloria Scottas Christian name wasnat Gloria and her surname wasnat Scott.a aAs to her Christian name,a said Fen equably, ayou have the advantage of me. But I can tell you what her surname was.a And he did so.

aYes, yes!a Humbleby was vastly pleased. aYouare perfectly right. I donat at the moment understand how you arrived at it, but youare perfectly right. Good enough for a warrant, donat you think?a aQuite good enough,a Fen a.s.sented gravely. aBut before you go, donat forget to see your a.s.sistant Commissioner and tell him that Chichleyas services will not now be required.a aSuch pleasures,a said Humbleby in a judicial manner, acome rather low on the moral scale, but theyare not the less alluring for thata Do you want to accompany me?a aNo, thanks. Iam squeamish about creatures in snares, however much they may have deserved it.a aYes, youare right,a said Humbleby more soberly. aItas never a pleasant business.a He stood up. aBut if youall meet me later, weall discuss it all.a aIall be at the Athenaeum,a said Fen. aDine with me if you have time. And come there anyway.a aExplicit.a Humbleby moved to the door. aExplicit the Crane case. From now on the lawyers take overa Till this evening, then.a An hour and a half later he was knocking at a certain door. It was opened to him by a maidservanta"a slatternly, full-bosomed girl, irresistibly suggestive of the low-life episodes in an eighteenth-century novel. No, sir, she said, the master aadnat been aome, not since morning. And no, she aadnat a notion where ae might be. Bin out a lot the last few days, ae aad. Funny goings-on, if they asked aer. Oh yes (sniffing haughtily), they could come in and aave a look round if they didnat believe aera They went in and had a look round, and the houseas owner was certainly absent. Humbleby posted two men there against the contingency of his return, and drove off resignedly with his sergeant. The sergeant was not moved at being personally involved in the denoument of a case which the whole country was discussing. He was of the old school: as far as he was concerned, a murder was a murder, whether the victim was a film star or a vagrant, and all arrests were alike in representing an ethic vindicated and job done. Having cleared his throat loudly, he did, however, permit himself to address a sociable question to his superior. aThink aeall be able to slip out of the country, sir?a he enquired conversationally.

Humbleby grunted. aI hope not. And nowadays it isnat easy, is it?a aNot with all these Government regulations it isnat, sir. I know they aelps us in some ways, but Iad as soon be without aem, just the same. The more red tape you ave the more petty w.a.n.gling there is for us to dirty our fingers on. And thereas a lot too much of it, if you ask me.a Humbleby concurred in these strictures. aStill, red tapeas useful in this case,a he observed. aThe odds on our fellowas escaping area"oh, at least ninety-nine to oneaa But unless natural death claims him, Evan George will no doubt still be congratulating himself, many years hence, on the fact that it was the hundredth chance which came off.

Chapter Five.

To Professor Gervase Fen, c/o Leiper Films, Inc., Long Fulton Studios, England.

Mexico, April 1949.

My dear Professor Fen: Youall be surprised, I dare say, that I should write to you rather than to the police; we were, after all, only very briefly and slightly acquainted. But Iave always felt a great admiration for your talents in the criminological as well as the scholarly field, and I should like you to be the legal owner of my confession, which I donat doubt will earn some little notoriety in the history of crime. You will of course pa.s.s it on to the police, so that the affair can be definitively wound up and any remaining uncertainties cleared awaya As you can see, Iam not repentant: those three odious young people deserved to die. But itas strange how spiritually empty I feel now that the job is done.

My one regret is that it wasnat possible for me to follow the course of the investigation. I should like to have known whether you had any inkling of the truth before my flight gave the game away. In view of your ability, and of my own deliberate carelessness, I imagine you had much more than an inkling.

Please note that I say deliberate carelessness. I flatter myself that if I had chosen to do so, I could have covered my tracks so effectively that even you would never have suspected me. But of course, the one thing I could not hope to conceal for long was the ident.i.ty of aGloria Scotta, and since that in itself was bound to incriminate me, the precautions I took as regards the actual killings were never more than sketchy, never intended to do more than give me time to finish what I had set out to do.

One thing at least will be clear to you by this time: the girl you knew as aGloria Scotta was in fact my daughter Madeline.

And I adored her.

Note the tense of the verb. I donat use that tense merely because Madeline is no longer alive. Somethinga"a quite unexpected psychological volte-facea"happened to me when I saw Maurice Crane die that Sat.u.r.daya But you shall hear all about that in its proper place.

aGloria Scotta was my daughter. And to make you understand why I killed the Cranes I must take you back to the time of my marriage, nearly twenty years ago.

I suppose there never was a less sensible union. Dorothy and I were incompatible in almost every respect. I met her in Johannesburg, where I was born and where I spent the first thirty-seven years of my life. And looking back on it, it seems incredible to me that I could ever have thought her attractive in any way. None the less, I did. You must realise that I didnat begin writing, didnat acquire a reputation and a decent income, till quite late in life. At the time I first encountered Dorothy I was a very insignificant person, earning a wretched pittance as a clerk in the Johannesburg office of the De Windt Diamond Company, and Dorothy came from a higher economic level altogether. Her parents, like mine, were dead, and she had a private incomea"nothing enormous, but quite adequate to live on. Even at that time I was hankering after a literary life, and if I was to write, I needed unearned money to keep me going while I established myself.

So you see how it happened. It wasnat Dorothy I married, but her Deposit Account at the bank.

She was a slim, tall girl, very fair, with washed-out blue eyes. As you know, Iam small and dark, and Iave noticed that men of my physical type are often infatuated with women of hers. And in some obscure fas.h.i.+on she musta"since she did marry mea"have been attracted to me, outwardly unimportant though I was. I should like to think that she divined my talent, but that would be to flatter her. Actually, I believe she regarded the marriage from the first as a licence and an opportunity for unrestricted bullying. And I was stupid enough to fall into the trap.

After the first few weeks my married life was a h.e.l.l. With my physical smallness and my absolute dependence on Dorothy for money, I was impotent, hamstrung. Little men who are maltreated by big wives are normally matter for farce, but I can a.s.sure you from personal experience that the situation is not funnya If she had had any respect for my writing I might have put up with the other things, but at first I was very unsuccessful, and she never missed an opportunity of jeering at my work. And s.e.xual intercourse, when she allowed it at all, was a condescension, an unspeakable mockery.

But then Madeline was born.

Artistic creation apart, Madeline provoked in me the strongest emotions Iave ever known. Love, as other people experience it, has never come my way, and Iave had no deep, enduring friends.h.i.+ps, and so emotionally I was frustrated, bottled up, and all the affection I was capable of was available for Madeline when she came. I doted on hera"it was a love so strong that nothing, not even my work, had a chance against it. I canat pretend to myself, now that Iam able to look at things more clearly, that it was a healthy state of mind; on the contrary, it was an obsession which intensified as the years went by to the point, almost, of dementia. But Iam not writing this letter in order to justify my feeling for Madelinea"only to explain how it came about that I embarked on anything so melodramatic as a career of vengeance.

My wife hated and despised me. And because I wors.h.i.+pped Madeline, my wife came to hate and despise Madeline as well. She was not physically cruel to the childa"though I think she would have been, and enjoyed it, if shead dareda"but she thwarted Madeline in every way she possibly could, so that even when Madeline was an infant I could see that she was becoming secretive and twisted and mistrustful. I understand that Madeline was not popular at the studios, or at the Menenford theatre where she worked. But can you wonder that she wasnat frank and free and straightforward, after the upbringing shead had? I believe that if she had not died she would have fought off, in time, the effects of that upbringing, because she had a naturally sweet and candid nature; but you canat chain a girl for seventeen years to a mother who hates her without warping her character badly.

I can manage to look at Madeline objectively now. She grew up to be rather conceited and silly and wild. I wouldnat say these things about her if they had been her fault. But Dorothy was responsible, Dorothy anda"

I was going to add ano one elsea, but that wouldnat be true. Indirectly, I was responsible, too.

Because, you see, Dorothy divorced me and the court gave her custody of Madeline. And that meant that from then on Dorothy was able to indulge in her subtle beastliness to Madeline without any restraint at all.

I neednat go into detail about the divorce. All I need say is that my home life was abominable, and I slept with a girl and Dorothy found out about it. Of course, she jumped at the chance to get rid of me, and but for Madeline I would have been delighted to get rid of her; by that time Iad sooner have starved, or given up writing, than lived on her detestable money any longer. But I adored little Madelinea"she was six thena"and the thought of parting with her was unbearable to me. Dorothy knew that, and obtaining custody of Madeline was her great triumph, the most succulent and satisfying part of her revenge on me. I did everything I could to get the decision reversed, but it was impossible. I went so far as to contemplate suicide, but I felt that would be a betrayal of Madeline, because there was always the chance that one day, however far distant, I might be able to be of service to her. What I did in the end was to get drunk and leave South Africa. I was drunk continuously for three weeks, and then when my money ran out I worked my pa.s.sage on a boat bound for England. I had the right to see Madeline once a month, but I thought it would be better to make a complete break.

In England my talent was recognised, and I prospered; it was for Madelineas sake that I worked and saved, and there wasnat a day when I didnat think of her. Sometimes I got news of her from friends in South Africa who knew how I felt, but I never mentioned her to anyone in England, and I doubt if anyone in England knew that Iad ever been married; somehow it wasnat a thing I wanted to talk about. I brooded a lot, no doubt, and worried a lot, and itas arguable that on this topic I got to be a bit unhinged. But in a fragmentary way I was kept informed about Madeline, and what I wasnat told I could visualise or imagine. I was sent an occasional photograph, tooa And that was how I was able to recognise my daughter at Nicholas Craneas party.

Iad heard that Dorothy and Madeline were leaving for Englanda"that Dorothy had developed cancer of the lungs and wanted advice from Harley Street. And Iad tried to trace them after their arrival in England, and completely failed. That meant that for two nightmarish years Iad had no news of them whatever, and didnat know whether they were alive or dead. Iad intended attempting to make it up with Dorothy, so that I could see Madeline again, but both of them seemed to have just stepped off the s.h.i.+p and vanished into thin air. I suspect now that the detective agency I employed was grossly incompetent.

I was sounding the ultimate depths of human misery when Leiper asked me to write the script for The Unfortunate Lady. My first instinct was to refusea"all work was an atrocious penance at that stagea"but then I decided that a new kind of job might alleviate my depression slightly, and eventually I accepted. Iad not the faintest notion, of course, that Madeline was in the film business, and though I heard aGloria Scotta referred to once or twice, the name naturally conveyed nothing to me; and as her part in the film wasnat important enough to justify her attending our script conferences, there was no opportunity for me to meet her.

But then came the night of Nicholas Craneas party.

I was talking to someone when she came in, and didnat immediately see her. But when I did, I recognised her instantly; and I think that if I hadnat already had a good deal to drink Iad have made something of a scene. As it was, I could hardly believe I wasnat dreaming.

And she recognised me, of course. Caroline Cecil told your Inspector Humbleby that as soon as Madeline entered something startled her; and that something was the unexpected sight of me. She knew who her father was, and my photograph has appeared on the dust jackets of various of my books; but apparently shead had no idea, till that moment, that I had anything to do with films in general or The Unfortunate Lady in particular. So seeing me there was a shock.

We were introduced. We spoke to one another like strangers. She wasnat sure that Iad identified her and I wasnat sure that shead identified me, and I think we both felt that a rowdy party wasnat the place for a reunion like ours. I was dazed, too. It was like inventing an island or a continent and then discovering that in all its imagined detail it actually existed. The party dragged on and I drank a lot more. Madeline stayed behind to talk to Nicholas Crane and I went out to wait for her on the pavement. One or two others, as it happened, waited with me.

Itas odd how oneas mind works. Iad been a.s.suming that because I wanted so pa.s.sionately to be with Madeline, shead want to be with me. But she didnat, of course. Iad been out of her life for so long that I was nothing but a name to hera"and G.o.d knows what lies Dorothy had told her about me. Anyway, shead been on her own in England for two years and yet had never made any attempt to get into touch with mea She would have done, perhaps, if shead ever been utterly wretched, but until Mr. Nicholas Crane came along shead escaped that.

And in the end it was to me that she turned for comfort. As we walked to Piccadilly that night, the whole story poured out: how shead grown up to detest Dorothy; how Dorothy had died in their Liverpool hotel the night after they landed and how, being still only seventeen and thinking that a particularly odious brother of Dorothyas would now be appointed as her guardian, she had run away to Menenford that same night, without telling anyone of Dorothyas death, and had there taken a job at the repertory theatre under an a.s.sumed name. She was afraid, it seems, that the police would find her, but there was no photograph of her in Dorothyas luggage, and although the Missing Persons Bureau got one from South Africa, she was never located. The ration-book difficulty she solved by eating in cafes. That was how she began a completely new lifea She was distraught that night in Mayfair, almost hysterical. Small wonder. In addition to all the other things, she told me what Maurice and Madge and Nicholas Crane had done to her.

You can guess how I felt. As for her, her one thought was to run home and hide her head under the bedclothes. I consoled her as well as I could, and after arranging to call for her at her new lodgings in the morning to talk things over, I put her into her taxi. She wasnat in the mood for company, even mine.

Naturally I lied about this episode to the police. By that time, Maurice Crane was dead, and I could hardly admit that I was Gloria Scottas father.

I stood in Piccadilly for a few minutes after the taxi had gone, fretting. It had occurred to me, rather belatedly, that Madelineas mood was such that she really ought not to be left alone. So after a while I hailed a second taxi and told the man to drive me to the Stamford Street address.

And by the time we reached Waterloo Bridge they were just pulling my daughter out of the river.

I noticed the little crowd that had gathered, and I told the driver to stop. Somehow I had a premonition of what had happened. I stayed there only long enough to make sure I was right. Then the taxi took me back to my hotel.

I didnat sleep at all that night. I was a little mad, I expect. There were two lines of Popeas Elegy which chased one another interminably round the inside of my skull. aOn all the line a sudden vengeance waits, And frequent hea.r.s.es shall besiege your gatesaa There was only one thing I wanted to do, and that was to kill.

And there were three people whom I thought the world would be well rid of.

As you know, colchicine was what I used, and it was a more or less arbitrary choice. I was limited to the vegetable poisons, of coursea"Iave never been able to understand why murderers insist on buying packets of a.r.s.enic at the chemistas when the fields and woods and gardens are smothered in things that are quite as deadlya"but it might just as well have been aconitine or belladonna. Perhaps I was influenced by the fact that to me the autumn crocus is one of the most beautiful of flowersa I hadnat the resourcesa"chloroform and what nota"for isolating the pure principle of the drug. But my amateurish distilling turned out quite wella"didnat it? And if it had failed to work, I could always have employed some other method.

The distilling was done immediately before lunch on the Friday. Earlier that morning I had been to Stamford Street to remove any evidence there might be there of Madelineas real name. In case you should think me stupida"which most certainly I am nota"I must emphasise that this was never intended to be anything more than a delaying tactic; I knew that my daughteras true ident.i.ty was bound to be established in the end. But as a delaying tactic it was useful, for I could not at that stage foresee what opportunities I should have for getting at my victims, and I needed a few daysa immunity in which to work.

A few days, I say; the point is that I intended quite honestly to give myself up as soon as the job was done. Does that surprise you? Probably not. You must have perceived that Xas recklessnessa"in the matter of leaving footprints, for instancea"could only be explained, in a person who in other respects was so obviously intelligent (for example, I invariably wore gloves), by some such hypothesis as that. In the end, however, the habit of being alive proved too strong for me. It was not lack of courage which prevented me from surrendering myself; it was the intellectual conviction that such an act would be socially valueless, and hence merely irrational and superst.i.tious.

When I was at Stamford Street I took the opportunity of removing, for sentimental reasons, one or two mementoes of Madeline. I have them with me herea"but itas strange how little they move me now.

I poisoned Maurice Craneas medicine that Friday afternoon. The grounds of Lanthorn House provide perfect cover, and I was spying out the land when I happened to glimpse him at his bedroom window. So that enabled me to find the right room without too much difficulty. The house is large, rambling and completely vulnerable, and it was simple to get in. To roam about it uninvited, with a tincture of colchicine in my pocket, was of course tremendously risky, but I have never been averse from danger, and the G.o.ds protect those who act boldly. Certainly they protected me, then and throughout. At Stamford Street, at Lanthorn House, on Doon Island, at Nicholas Craneas London flata"on each and every occasion I escaped undetected. A guardian angela"or devil, as some will be sure to say!a"looked after me, and my confidence increased hugely as success followed success.

I went home and waited for what should happen. You know how things turned out. Maurice Crane did die, and in front of my very eyes. And that was when, quite suddenly and without warning, Madeline ceased to be important to me. I must not say too much on this subject, or stupid people will misconstrue me. But I can tell you this, that at the moment of Maurice Craneas death my love for Madeline was blotted out, or thrust aside, by an even stronger emotion. Till then, I had not believed that any stronger emotion could possibly exist. But I was wrong. What I felt then was the strongest and deepest and most intoxicating of all the emotionsa"and Iave wondered since how on earth I managed to conceal it! However, Iam an excellent actor, and manage I somehow did.

Nicholas Crane was the next on my list, and until early on the Monday no opportunity of dealing with him presented itself. But after that the Fates were kind. I visited his flat at half-past seven that morning on a fict.i.tious pretext. Not a very plausible hour for visiting! But I was devouringly impatient and scarcely cared whether he found my irruption suspicious or not. My excuse for knocking him up was to have been that I was leaving London early for the North, and wanted before I went to consult him about certain technical detailsa"camera-angles, panning and so fortha"in my script. He might or might not have believed that; and an opportunity for leaving some poison behind might or might not have occurred. But in the event, such considerations turned out to be irrelevant. By a blessed coincidence he had gone out, inadvertently leaving his door unlatched. So I was able to do what I pleased.

That afternoon I drove down to Doon Island. There I was obliged to wait an hour or two before it was possible to enter Madge Craneas cottage, and when between six and seven I did succeed in doing so, I was somewhat perplexed as to where my poison should be put. Let me make one thing very plain. Although Maurice Craneas death changed me psychologically, so that from then on the driving force behind my actions was no longer my devotion to Madeline, but something rather differenta"in spite of all that, I never allowed myself, however strongly I may have been tempted, to kill indiscriminately, just for the sake of it. If I had succ.u.mbed to that temptation, the girl who chased me into the Maze would no longer be alive. Nor would you. Nor, probably, would several other people. But I have a good deal of self-control, and I kept myself in check. The mere pleasantness of an experience, however intense, does not justify one in over-indulgence, I consider. So you see, Iam not really the conscienceless monster some people will probably represent me to be!

All of which is by way of explaining the difficulty I was in after Iad climbed through a window into Madge Craneas cottage. There seemed to be no medicine in this instance, and whatever else I poisoned the secretary might have eaten or drunk as well. In the upshot I had to fall back on the very unsatisfactory compromise of putting my colchicine in the gin. And again it worked exactly as I had intendeda"though not, of course, until thirty-six hours later.

That night I went again to Lanthorn House, and there operated on the steering-gear of Nicholas Craneas car. I thought it very likely, you see, that as soon as the cause of Maurice Craneas death was discovered Nicholas and Madge would be on their guard against poison; so additional plans had to be made. As youall remember, there was a script conference the following day, the Tuesday morning, and I was horrified when I saw David Crane drive up to the studios in Nicholasa car. I had no grudge against David, no wish to see him die. After lunch, therefore, when the carpentersa shop started work again, I disabled the engine as best I could with an iron bar I found in the garage. So tell that to anyone whoas stupid enough to think of me as a homicidal maniac!

On Tuesday evening I killed Nicholas. Iam sorry to say that he took me unawaresa"otherwise it would not have been such a head-on encounter. I have the right to be a little proud of myself, I think. He realised at once why I was there, he was bigger and stronger and younger than I, and he had a gun, while I had only a knife which Iad kept from my South African days. But I went for him baldheaded, and he was so fl.u.s.tered that his shot missed me by yards. The moment when the knife went into him was the best moment of alla Youall be thinking, of course, that what I experienced was just a commonplace blood-l.u.s.t. If you are thinking that, youare wrong. I can safely say that my excitement was of an altogether more subtle and intellectual variety than that.

Unfortunately, I lost my head as soon as the deed was done. When I heard someone approaching, I fled, not realising that it was only a solitary girl. Youall have heard about our game of hide-and-seek in the Maze. Needless to say, I didnat blunder into it intentionally! And there were times when I wondered if I should ever get out! The girl and I must have got to the centre, unbeknown to each other, by different routes. At the moment when she lit that match and screamed and fainted Iad just fallen over the mound of that grave in the darkness, and I was crawling about trying to discover if I was on the edge of some pit or othera Doubtless it was a little unnerving for her. Further scruples, you see! I must apologise to you for felling you and removing your guide-string, but youall appreciate that I was somewhat anxious to delay pursuita Well, the storyas nearly told. The stop-press columns in the late editions of the Wednesday morning papers informed me that Madge Crane was dead and my job completed, so I decided it was time for me to be moving on. At Brixham, in Devon, I stole a motor-launch, and by night crossed in it to the French coast near Cherbourga"a neighbourhood I know well. At Cherbourg I boarded a boat bound for Mexico; and here I am. Ever since the end of the war Iave been investing my money in diamondsa"itas a precaution I advise you to take in these days of shaky currenciesa"and I was able to bring a quant.i.ty of the stones with me. Theyall enable me to live in comfort, here or elsewhere, for a long, long time to come.

So now you know all about it. But thereas one additional thing I must say, and that isa (Here the ma.n.u.script breaks off) aIn a mild way,a said Fen, aone wishes one knew what the aadditional thinga was. The usual claim to have been unique, I expect. I donat suppose the murderer has ever lived who didnat imagine his mental processes to be unprecedented in the worldas history.a Judy Flecker nodded.

aBut he wrote other confessions, didnat he?a she said. aYou could perhaps fill in the gap from those.a aDozens of them,a Humbleby agreed. aFor all I know heas writing them still. But most of them are almost completely fantastic. I understand that latterly theyave been addressed to church dignitaries for the most parta"the Moderator of the Methodist a.s.sembly being a particular favourite.a aAnd is it always Mexico he imagines heas escaped to?a aNo, itas Labrador sometimes, or the Sahara. Neither of those places bears much resemblance to the inside of Broadmoor, but that doesnat seem to worry him at all. No, the point is that Fenas letter, which was the first of them, is the only one thatas both coherent anda"uma"substantially true. Its statements have been checked, as a matter of routine, and apart from the penultimate paragraph theyare all correct.a aIs he completely insane now?a aI believe so, yes.a aAnd do you think he was insane at the time he committed the murders?a aProbably. Not on the surface, of course, but certifiably, none the less. To judge from what he says himself, it was seeing Maurice Crane die that finally pushed him over the edge.a aI go cold down the spine,a said Judy, awhenever I think of him standing over me in that ghastly Mazea Itas funny: I never met him in the normal way, you know, or even set eyes on him. You actually arrested him in London, didnat you?a aYes. In a Tottenham Court Road pub, at lunch-time on the Thursday. His picture was in all the morning papers, you remember, and the pubas proprietor recognised him and telephoned us. G.o.d knows what he was doing there, or what he intended to do. Mentally, he was pretty far gone by that time, and I saw at once that head be much too mad to come up for triala Just as well, I suppose.a They were in the lounge of the Club at Long Fulton studios. It was a long, low, raftered room with chintz-covered armchairs, bra.s.s ash-trays, and at one end a well-stocked bar. Their drinks were on a low gla.s.s-topped table in front of the settee they were occupying. Bright May suns.h.i.+ne shone in through the windows, and since it was midday, and the studio people were almost all at work, they had the place to themselves. Fen and Humbleby were there at Judyas invitation; it was only during the past week, at a date nearly two months after the denoument of the Crane case, that they had succeeded in arranging a meeting convenient to all three of them.

Judy turned to Fen.

aAnd now,a she said, awhat about the logic of it all?a aSimple enough,a he replied, aif once you were prepared to grant that the murderer hadnat an accomplice who was on Doon Island while he was at Lanthorn Housea"or vice versa.a He became aggrieved. aBut from the deductive point of view it wasnat at all a satisfactory case, for the simple reason that there were so many alternative ways in which the mystery could have been solved: with the aid of the footprints report, for examplea"or by any one of numerous combinations of mere chance and mere routinea Still, one canat, I suppose, expect life to conform with the pattern of detective stories, in which but for pure reasoning no criminal would ever be caught. I sometimes thinka"a aGet on with it,a said Humbleby, aand donat ramble so much.a Fen regarded him rather coldly.

aThe vital clue,a he said, adidnat appear till right at the end. It consisted of the information that Madgeas gin could only have been poisoned between six and seven p.m. on the Monday. Now, Nicholasa medicine could have been poisoned either between six and seven p.m. on the Monday or between seven and eight a.m. on the Monday. Even to an intelligence as tardy as Humblebyas it was clear that between six and seven p.m. the murderer could not have been both on Doon Island (poisoning Madgeas gin) and at Lanthorn House (poisoning Nicholasa medicine), for the excellent reason that the two places are a good three hoursa journey apart. And that meant that Nicholasa medicine must have been poisoned between seven and eight on the Monday morning.

aNow, there was never any question but that the murders were purposive, that the victims were exclusively people who had harmed Gloria Scott. And therefore the interesting thing about the time Nicholasa medicine was poisoned was the fact that that time was hours previous to the publication in the Mercury of Nicholasa letter to Madge. In other words, X was gunning for Nicholas long before the world at large knew Nicholas had ever harmed Gloria Scott at alla"at a time, indeed, when the girl was thought to be his particular protegee. Iad guessed at the contract business, but X wouldnat have killed Nicholas, to judge from his scruples about David and the car, on the basis of guesswork.a aWasnat there the possibility, though,a said Judy, athat the business of the car was a red herring contrived by David?a aYes, certainly. But that possibility was only acceptable on the hypothesis that David was the murderer; and Humbleby was witness to the fact that he couldnat possibly have poisoned Madgeas gin.a aOh, yes, I seea Go on.a aX, then, was scrupulous about not harming the innocent. And since he poisoned Nicholasa medicine early on the Monday, that meant he must have had inside information about the contract trickery. From whom did he get it? Up to 8.20 a.m. on the Monday, when Snerd gave the letter to Rouncey, there were just four people who knew of it: Madge, Nicholas, Snerda"and Gloria Scott herself.

aNow it was demonstrable, of course, that none of those people was X. Snerd might have been; but when Nicholas was knifed Snerd was safely in gaol, so that eliminated him, even if theread been no other grounds for doing so. So one of the four had clearly told some other person about the trick that had been played on Gloria. Snerd? No, inconceivable; he admitted so much when Humbleby caught up with him that he couldnat possibly have done himself any further harm by admitting that; and heas not the sort of man to lie in order to protect someone. Madge and Nicholas? Equally inconceivable. It was as much as their jobs were worth to let any whisper of their shabby little deception get abroad.

aThat left Gloria Scott.

aAnd there was only one person Gloria Scott talked to between the moment when Nicholas told her what shead let herself in for and the moment when she committed suicide.a aEvan George,a Judy murmured. aYes, I seea But look here, mightnat he have pa.s.sed the information on to someone else?a aHe might, yes. But in that case, why should he have lied about his talk with Gloria? Why should he have denied (his silence on the subject was an obvious denial) ever receiving the information?a aWell, if he admitted to being Gloria Scottas father, head be suspected of Maurice Craneas murder. So even though he was innocent of that murder, he didnat dare admit it.a aNo good, Iam afraid. At the time he lied, it wasnat clear that Maurice Crane had been murdered at all. He might quite wella"as far as, if he was innocent, George knewa"have died a natural death.a aOh yes, of coursea Thereas still another loophole, though. Evan George might have been lying about his conversation with Gloria to protect someonea"someone head told about the conversation.a Fen raised his eyebrows. aBut what way could his lying possibly have protected anyone? At that stage Nicholasa medicine hadnat yet been poisoned, and until that had happened, this whole business of who knew about the contract trickery was completely irrelevant: it just didnat incriminate anyone. No, Iam afraid the conclusion was unarguable: Evan George lied; and his motive in lying can only have been to protect himselfa I could only guess, of course, at how he was related to Gloria; but that he was her father seemed to be by far the likeliest thing.a There was a long silence; all of them were looking back on the case, and on the part they had severally played in it. Then Judy said: aPoor Davida Iam afraid itall take him a long time to recover from it all.a aIs he still working here?a Fen asked.

aNo, heas left. He was never any good, and anyway heall be thirty-five in August and come into the money his father left in trust for hima He asked me to marry him the other day.a aAnd are you going to?a aIam afraid not. Heas a very nice soul, but head only make about a quarter of a proper husband. One would have to marry others as well to make up, and polygamy isnat legal.a aPolyandry,a Fen corrected her mildly.

aPolyandry, thena Though Iam not at all sure,a said Judy dreamily, athat having several husbands at a time mightnat be rather piquant.a aThe plural of mouse is mice,a Fen observed, abut I doubt if it can be maintained that the plural of spouse isaa He broke off. aBy the way, whatas going to happen about The Unfortunate Lady?a aShelved,a said Judy. aShelved sine die. I gather that Leiper suddenly got tired of it. At the moment heas contemplating a film about Sir Philip Sidney.a aWhich purports to prove, no doubt,a said Fen acidly, athat the entire corpus of Sidneyas poetry was fabricated in 1909 by Mr. T. S. Eliot.a Humbleby looked at his watch. aWell, I must be off, Iam sorry to say. I have an appointment with some burglaries in Hammersmith.a aJust one more thing before you go.a Judy leaned forward earnestly. aDo you think that what George says about Gloriaas miserable childhood, in his confession, is true?a aAs far as Iave been able to check it, it is. Why do you ask?a aOh, I donat knowa I really did like her, you know. And when I look back on it all, itas always her I think about most. And she had such rotten lucka"a cruel mother and perhaps a hereditary taint from her father, too.a aYes,a said Humbleby seriously, ashe did have rotten luck. For anything mean or vicious that she did one can hardly blame her.a Fen nodded. aSo our final toast is inevitable. With Gloria Scott the case began, and with her it should closeaa He raised his gla.s.s, and they theirs.

aTo the memory,a he said, aof an Unfortunate Lady.a

end.