Francis Everton

“ An eternity which I occupied in playing tennis at the club, serving through an interminable game, first with the baby flagon of Chinese poison and then with my own severed hand, which Margaret handed to me on her racquet like a ball; in racing frantically from room to room, to find Ethel, then The Tundish, then each of the others in turn, lying dead on their backs with staring bloodshot eyes—all dead, and myself alone with the dead—alone and tearing desperately from one room to the next to find a sign of life ”

“ I had been looking at beauty and thinking of love, while behind me the lawn was a place of broken hopes and death.
Dead birds lay scattered over the little square; sparrows mostly, but a robin with its vivid breast, and a cock blackbird with its gay orange beak were there as well, and they all lay stiffly on their backs with their little claws pathetically extended, for all the world as though they had been taken from some taxidermist’s show-case and scattered about the grass. Under the hedge lay Ethel’s tabby Tom, stark and stiff, a half-eaten sparrow between his outstretched paws. ”

“ I was standing on the far side of the lawn, level with the end of the doctor’s wing, and somehow, from the way she looked about her, perhaps, I could guess that she had been out on some errand in connection with our mystery.
To every pair of lovers, I suppose, there must come some time when they quite suddenly realize that the word “friendship” can no longer express their growing interest in each other, and I know that it was as Janet moved the few short paces across the end of the surgery wing that I realized that I was head over heels in love. ”

“ Ethel had spoken quietly at first, but her sentence ended on a note of bitterness.
“That is a grossly unfair thing to say,” Kenneth answered hotly. “I might just as well say that you don’t care whether he did it or not, and I begin to think that I shouldn’t be far from the truth if I did say that. Everything proves that he doped the draft, and you can kiss him and fondle his hands! You don’t even reserve your judgment and say this man may be a vile murderer—you just flaunt your absurd hero-worship in front of us all. If he had a spark of decency in him he would give himself up.” ”

“ Since, I have often thought, and I must confess with not a little shame, that there could have been no better illustration of a strong man’s personality dominating that of a man less strong. There was I with my suspicions all aroused—suspicion backed by evidence and based on solid reasoning—suspicions, which in spite of my instinctive liking for the doctor, would not lie dormant and disregarded—yet he only had to whisper, “Come along in and close the door,” and I go to him in a darkened room without thought of harm or danger. ”

“ She was facing the light, her eyes like two clear stars, that now and again would shine into mine, when the room and its occupants would fade away leaving us alone together for a blessed brief eternity.
She had not been really hurt by Margaret’s ill-treatment, and apart from the effects of the chloroform and a bruise here and there, she was none the worse for her experience. Cold bandages, a little brandy and a couple of hours’ rest had enabled me to recover from my own collapse, which the doctor attributed as much to shock as to the blow on my head. ”

“ A doctor in the house—a mysterious death which the doctor would not certify—a body removed to the mortuary by the police, and an inquest—an unpleasant string of facts to have to admit! Add a little imagination, a dash or two of spite, and a misunderstanding here and there as the details are whispered by one scandal-loving cathedral matron to the next, and it is easy to realize that the final story might even outcrimson the actual facts. ”

“ I see that I made Ralph kill her because she had refused to marry him—hot work for even those hot days, to fall in love, propose marriage, be rejected, grow mad with jealousy and slay, all in the space of some fifty hours. But that was the best I could do for the quiet Ralph. I made Ethel kill her because she was jealous of The Tundish; Margaret, because she was jealous of Ralph; Kenneth, because he wanted to fasten the blame on the placid, aggravating doctor whom he hated so much ”

“ The Tundish in the dining-room begging us to bury our suspicions, at Allport’s inquiry, flicking the ash from the end of his cigarette, Allport’s insinuations having as little effect as water on a greasy slope, baiting Kenneth, talking of the murderous activities of the anti-vaccinationists with a cool effrontery before us all, making love to Ethel—The Tundish, impassive and callous and cruel, with his mask of a face and twinkling unbetraying eyes, these and other little pictures rose before my sleepless eyes. ”

“ I had almost forgotten that Ethel and The Tundish were both of them unaware of Janet’s connection with Allport, and even after she had spoken they were a little time in grasping what her words implied.
It was The Tundish who tumbled to it first.
“Well, then, Mrs. Kenley,” he said pleasantly, “we are more indebted to you than ever. You relieved us of Torquemada here in the chair, you saved us from Aunt Emmeline, you probably prevented us all from cutting one another’s throats, and all the time you were solving the mystery that had entangled us in its meshes.” ”

“ I imagine there can hardly be a point in the whole city from which the cathedral can not be seen towering up above, and at the hour and at the quarters, every street reverberates with the boom of the chimes from the central tower.
The doctor’s house stands just at the foot of the hill, and the long garden behind it lies dead level at first and then rises steeply at about half its length. The garage stands on a tiny plateau leveled off at the top of the slope. ”

“ Her occupation, somehow, seemed proper to the setting and enhanced the pretty picture that she made. Ethel knitted jumpers too, but she went at them with a rush. With Margaret it was all leisurely movement and grace, and I imagined her feelings when knitting, as those of a cat, which sits in the sun and slowly and endlessly washes its face. She greeted me with a sleepy smile, stifled a yawn, and proceeded to gather her belongings together, but her scissors could not be found though we searched the floor together and felt down the hidy-hole between the back and the seat of her chair. ”

“ I propped myself up with the pillows and lighted a cigarette. Outside I could just see the top of the garden wall at the front of the house—a ridge of steel blue where the moonlight caught the tiles aslant—a barrier of black beneath. Moonlight!—sunlight speeding through the years, flung wide of the earth, and caught by a dead world and killed. Sunlight with the life sucked out of it. Flowers and bees, sparkling waves, ruddy basking babies, hot desert sands, and the light and the glow of the sun! ”

“ I knew all about the poison and so did Ethel. The key of the bedroom door was found under your pillow, you know,” I added rather maliciously.
“Yes, and who put it there?” he burst in. “Why, he did. Of course he did. And the rest of you are willing to believe every word he says. He’s only to ask you ‘to keep Ethel and me together,’ damn his impudence, and you immediately believe that he is a paragon of unselfish piety—a sort of martyr sacrificing himself for others. Do you honestly mean to tell me that you have no doubts about the man yourself?” ”

“ When you treat a patient, Doctor, you diagnose the disease and then you treat him for it, and you work consistently on the assumption that your diagnosis has been correct until you find out definitely that you have made a mistake. You don’t make up your medicines to suit two or three possible ailments on the off chance that one of them may be correct. Well, my own experience has taught me that at an inquiry like the one we had round the dining-room table on the Wednesday morning, the only possible way to obtain exact information is to assume that the questionee is guilty. ”

“ Yes, sheltered and shut in is the right description for the old garden, with its red buttressed walls, that lies behind Dalehouse, and when after dinner we used to take our coffee on the lawn—Hanson and I with our pipes and perhaps Mrs. Hanson and Ethel with their sewing and their books—I used to think it must be the most peaceful spot in all the world. ”

“ She arrived at lunch-time, Ethel and Ralph going to meet her while Margaret and Kenneth and I reserved a table in the refreshment tent and started our meal. Ethel had not exaggerated her beauty. Tall and slim, her coppery brown hair, which later I was to learn was of the “kinky” variety, almost concealed by a little hat that matched it exactly, it was the light in her amber eyes and her complexion that added more than anything else to her general loveliness. More than one head turned in her direction. ”

“ And in all the scene, I thought, city and countryside alike, there could be no roof that sheltered such unhappiness, as the roof of the old red Georgian house underneath whose shadow I stood.
The cat still cuddling comfortably up against my neck, I walked across the lawn toward the surgery wing. The end away from the house lay deep in the shade, but there, plain enough, slung across two stout iron hooks, was a short wooden ladder. It was short, but, I calculated, long enough to allow of any fairly active person reaching the roof and gaining access to Stella’s bedroom window. ”

“ Annie came to tell us that lunch was served.
It was a sad meal. A place had been set for Stella by mistake. The Tundish had always said a short grace before our meals; it was a practise of Hanson’s which he kept up while he was away. Ethel began to say it in his absence, but she broke down after the first sentence and had to retire to the window while she regained her self-control. What little we ate, we ate in silence. Any attempt at general conversation seemed out of place, and the thoughts that occupied all our minds were too painful for speech. ”

“ Anyhow, incredible as it may sound, the job was completed and he was lifting the patient into the taxi that Ethel had sent for, as the cathedral clock chimed ten.
Have I described The Tundish as impassive and imperturbable—a man with a face like a mask that nothing could move? That was not the man who had bent tenderly over the morsel of damaged humanity that I had held in my arms. No nurse could have been more gentle; no mother more anxiously loving. ”

“ I can’t make you out at all. Murder might hardly be criminal from the way you seem to take it, and even a detestable murder like this—a girl poisoned in her bed—something to be borne in silence! I can hardly keep my hands off the brute, and the rest of you seem quite willing and even anxious to be friends.”
“Kenneth, how can you! Oh, how can you be so cruel! Suppose that you were in The Tundish’s place, how would you like it if we all of us turned against you and were ready to believe the worst? ”

“ No, my dear Jeffcock, to be perfectly truthful, that bothers me not at all. Death is a friend we shall all have to shake by the hand. It’s this depressing little record of unwholesome happenings and disease that nearly gave me a fit of the blues.”
I looked at the book with interest.
“It’s Hanson’s case-book,” he answered my unspoken question. “Such books should be burned. Burned and then the ashes scattered at sea, for half the world’s unhappiness springs from the disorders that we doctors write up so secretly in our case-books and keep hidden away under lock and key.” ”

“ Having once decided in his own mind that the doctor was guilty, then he was a murderer and no longer a human being in need of sympathy and understanding. Kenneth’s love was overwhelmed by his jealousy, which in turn was fed by Ethel’s loyalty to her friend and his own utter inability to compromise or look at a situation through any eyes but his own. ”

“ Did they belong to the same tennis club? Did she see him once a month? Once a week? Once a day? Had they ever been engaged to each other?
If he had been brutal to Ethel he was like a dog with a bone over poor Margaret, and after ten minutes or so she was white-faced too, and holding on to the edge of the table. Ralph was barely able to contain himself, but the little man almost growled at any interruption. “I will have the truth. I will have the truth!” he cried, and he paused only when he had reduced her to tears. A sigh of relief went round the table. The Tundish lighted another cigarette. ”

“ He told Allport that the glass was at the side of the bed, the dregs smelling of the poison. He told me that he had left the door unlocked. The door is found to be locked, and when it is broken open the glass is gone. Some one else, the murderer, has been up and thrown the glass away and locked the door. Where would such a one put the key if he wanted to throw suspicion on another? Why, in the doctor’s pocket, of course, the man who made up the medicine. And so he would decide to leave it where it was. If Margaret and I really heard any one creeping on the stairs could it have been the doctor? ”

“ I do hope that Margaret hasn’t waked her up. Now please be sensible and let the poor girl have what rest she can get. You can do no earthly good by making any bother. If I have poisoned Ethel’s medicine—which I take it is the friendly suggestion you are both of you making—she is dead by now, and nothing that you or any one else could do would save her. If I haven’t, then isn’t it rather a pity to wake her up merely to satisfy your curiosity? That’s the logic of the position, but if you feel it to be your duty, go and have a word with Inspector Brown about it. ”

“ Margaret, on hands and knees, half frantic, searching the floor for her incriminating diamond—then a sudden creak on the stairs, and the doctor gently pushing open the door to find her kneeling in prayerful attitude at the side of Stella’s bed—an attitude, surely, to make angels weep and Sapphira jealous. ”

“ Kenneth was standing against the mantelpiece talking to Ralph, and I heard him mutter gruffly, “If he ever does come back!”
Ethel gave him one angry look, but she made no reply. I could not understand Kenneth at all. Even if he did believe the doctor guilty he seemed to have nothing to gain by his behavior. He knew that The Tundish was a very old friend of Ethel, the girl to whom he had quite recently become engaged, and yet his love seemed to be of such poor stuff that he could not hide his feelings for her sake. ”

“ A few hours later the sad remainder of our little tennis party was gathered in the drawing-room round one of the open windows, Janet and Ethel comfortably on the settee, The Tundish and myself perched each in a corner of the broad window sill, little Allport lolling back at his ease in one of the large wicker chairs. ”

“ I felt that if only I had the answer to some of these questions, I should at any rate have some sort of insight into the little detective’s extraordinary behavior—some explanation of his reasons for leaving us to our own devices so suddenly, while he followed up a clue which he admitted held out little or no hope of leading him to the murderer. Surely one of his assistants could have chased this shadow, leaving him free to deal with the obviously more urgent problem that still remained unsolved here in Dalehouse. ”